★★★ (Four stars for full score) It is said that the real Billy Hayes was arrested by Turkey in 1970 and imprisoned on charges of trying to smuggle marijuana out of the country. He is guilty. He was initially sentenced to 3 to 5 years in prison, but then the Turkish authorities decided to try him on a more serious crime. The new sentence is almost life imprisonment. The young college student in prison will not be released until late middle age, if possible. Hayes escaped from prison, fled across the border to Greece, and wrote a bestseller about his experience. Two years later, the movie "Midnight Express" was released, adapted from his book, played by Brad Davis as the narcissistic, self-centered Hayes, and the story was adapted into a violent, sexual, Passion drama of morality and anger. What is unbearable is anger. When Hayes had only 54 days left to regain his freedom, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He stood in the dock of the prison and condemned all the Turks, calling them "the country of pigs." Of course they are not. Although Hayes is so unfortunate, we must remind ourselves that, after all, he smuggles marijuana voluntarily. So it is hard for us to sympathize with Billy Hayes. He tried his luck and failed. But you may find the irony that Turkey’s economy was developed by poppy crops, which supplies most of the world’s heroin, but the country has such strict anti-drug laws. Director Alan Parker found an old English castle in Malta as a prison, where criminals from all over the world gathered here. Randy Quaid plays a stupefied American; John Hurt plays a melancholy British prisoner who is addicted to drugs. There is also Norbert Weissel, who plays a young Swedish man who became Hayes's lover in the strangest love scene of the year. The prison scene is full of violence and abuse. It is arranged by a brutal guard whose specialty is to beat prisoners on the soles of their feet. Major crimes in prison seem to be contempt for guards; other behaviors such as drug abuse, black market transactions, and sexual assault have been deliberately ignored. Parker successfully turned the prison into a complete and real world, a microcosm of human behavior; this reminds me of EE Cummings' novel "The Huge Room". The art director of this film is particularly good at recreating that world, such as the scene where Hayes and his friends try to escape from an ancient cistern. There are also fantasies about hell, such as the scene of prisoners constantly turning around the stone pillars in the lunatic asylum. Yes, this movie creates a fascinating horror; but my only objection is that it is too eager to make us sympathize with Billy Hayes.
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