Midnight Express: Don't try to Smuggle Drugs Across Borders

Midnight Express

Purchased at an unknown date from an unknown place.

   First and foremost my favorite thing about Midnight Express is Giorgio Moroders title score "Chase" it's some fresh electronic disco that is still fly as shit 35 years later, I suppose the stuff on the screen isn't too bad either.  The movie did win an Academy award for the score though.  The cassette that I have appears to have been made in 1993, and the quality is about as good as you can expect a VHS tape to be.
   The flick is based on a true story about a guy who tries to take two kilos of hash out of Turkey, gets caught, and is eventually given a 30 year prison term.  I was once in Cambodia and had purchased a large amount of (fairly low grade) marijuana, and briefly thought of trying to take some back with me to South Korea where I was living at the time.  In South Korea you can get jail time for internal possession of drugs, fortunately the story of Billy Hayes was floating around in my brain and I did the smart thing and left the dope in Cambodia.  This film is serves as a reminder that when you are in another country, you are playing by their rules and that your ideas of right and wrong don't matter all that much.
     The film is quite sensationalized, it has that Oliver Stone feel to it ... because Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay and you can feel the hyped-up sensational bullshit feel that Stone brings to a production.  Some of these embellished details really pissed off the Turks, and also irritated original author Billy Hayes.  Apparently in 2004 Oliver Stone apologized for "tampering the truth". (sounds fishy doesn't it, pulled that off of Wikipedia).

Left on the #1 Bus in Boston @ 7:00 on 3/12/12