'Midnight Express' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh has reviewed 'Midnight Express.' Like anything Oliver Stone touches, the movie leaves room for debate and mixed feelings. This Blu-ray captures the film's grungy look with a decent transfer, but it's no showstopper. Same goes for the audio and extras. Worth a look if it catches your interest.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2403...htexpress.html

[audiomixer]

3 Stars?!? He's crazy...

[loganfire3]

I actually remember this movie as a kid and it scared the crap out of me. I really like the movie but you hit some good points regarding the demonizing of the turks in the movie. If you get caught doing something illegal in another country then be prepared to face that country's law. Personal politics aside, the move rates much higher with me then it's rating.

[davcole]

Love this film for it's brutal honesty. One of those films that can zap and then restore the human spirit. A great, true life story. Brad Davis was phenominal in this film along with good support from John Hurt and Randy Quaid.

Picture was sharp, without major problems but you have to understand that it's not going to be an HD looking film. Colors are bland and they are suppose to be. Audio-wise is nothing speical. You'll find a compressed soundfield, however I was impressed with how the Giorgio Moroder score came through cleanly, especially given it was originally a mono film.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by davcole

Love this film for it's brutal honesty. One of those films that can zap and then restore the human spirit. A great, true life story.

Obviously, I didn't like the movie as much as you did. But that's fine. I will point out, however, that pretty much all of the supplements on the disc mention how little the movie resembles the alleged true story, which was probably 90% BS to begin with.

Stone's script freely changes and rearranges the details of Hayes' book (which took place in two separate prisons), and Parker decided while on set not to film the big action-filled climax in which Hayes runs across the Greek border dodging machine gun fire from a regiment of Turkish soldiers. Even though he was still under-budget and had plenty of money left to shoot it, he realized that it was too ridiculous and implausible, and just couldn't bring himself to do it.

As you can see in the vintage "making of" promo, the real Hayes was very clearly a total douchebag, nothing like he's portrayed in the movie.

[Mullicious]

Ugh, this story is disgusting. Not what happened to Hayes, but Hayes himself. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Respect other countries laws.

[Mr. Mojo]

This film was much better than reviewed here.
It had a haunting soundtrack and exciting story.
The scene where he gets caught at the beginning is great.
But it sounds like the blue ray is mediocre - too bad.

[rn1017871]

Originally Posted by Mullicious

Ugh, this story is disgusting. Not what happened to Hayes, but Hayes himself. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Respect other countries laws.

I agree and I guess that was what I was thinking and I couldn't get into it. Once again, my opinon is equivalent to JZ's.

[krylonman]

It's funny, but it never even occurred to me that this movie might be trying to make a statement about anything. It's so far removed from the source material, it just seemed self-evident to me that it couldn't possibly think it was saying something about the actual Billy Hayes or actual conditions in Turkey. It was more like, oh, Taken, or maybe the world's longest episode of "I Shouldn't Be Alive." Nothing in it has a point, but wow, it's a hell of a story. I've always loved it, and I guess I have to thank the fact that I don't take it at all seriously as anything but an example of pure storytelling and filmmaking skill. (I think I'll skip the extra features--if Parker, Stone and/or Hayes really think this has some sort of relevance to real life, I won't be able to un-hear that and I'll probably find it as annoying and racist as Josh did.)

I've only skipped through the Blu-ray, but having seen this a few times it actually looked quite a bit better than I was expecting; this is exactly the kind of movie you fear will get a lot of inappropriate DNR or something, but it looks very natural and filmlike.

[stephan.klose]

I just wanted to comment on Joshes bashing the movie for depicting Turkey in unflattering ways. I am from Austria and we constantly hear stories of Austrian Citizens being robbed of their rights and thrown in jail for some obscure crimes they may or may not have committed. The last one being a young man being jailed for something he didn't even do. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison over there. There's a reason why we won't let them join the EU while every other Country has no problem getting in. And it's not pandering if you show that Turkey is very backward in certain things. Treatment of women and such being one of them.
As for the movie I haven't watched it yet. I will after I finish writing this post. I just wanted to make clear that no matter how cruel they show a turkish prison in that movie.. It's probably worse in real life!

[rn101787]

I thought this movie was terrible, my dad was telling me pretty much the entire story is inaccurate based on this movie.

[FreddyC]

I really like the film. But it does try to paint a story in which Hayes was a victim. The punishment, as depicted in the film, was not in line with the crime. That said, when you break the law anywhere, you should be well aware of the consequences. If not, too bad for you.

True story or whatever, I liked the film. I don't care enough about Billy Hayes for accuracy to matter to me in this film. And, we are talking about Oliver Stone. It's not like he's going to hold back his own thoughts on what the truth SHOULD be. Freddy