Hayes’ decision to strap the hashish to his body made it appear more like a suicide vest, and that explains the initial overreaction from airport security.

El libro es efectivo en trasmitir la desesperación de su protagonista por sobrevivir, por atravesar las paredes entre las que se encuentra recluido, por volver a su tierra, a lo que considera la vida.

And although Hayes has had a great misfortune (and penal reform is obviously much in need in Turkey), we have to remind ourselves that Hayes did, after all, decide of his own free will to smuggle the hashish, and thus entered into a tacit contract with the Turkish legal system, a contract in which he stood to gain as well as lose a great deal. He is told that he will be released if he cooperates with the authorities in identifying the person who sold him the hashish.

Midnight Express is a 1978 Turkish-American prison thriller drama film directed by Alan Parker and adapted by Oliver Stone from Billy Hayes's 1977 memoir of the same name. Influenced by '70s synthesizer sensibilities, if not a bit of disco, Giorgio Moroder's score doesn't always fit, when it is actually used, that is, but it is unique, entertaining and plenty effective in its alternating between liveliness and a certain bleak intensity, not entirely unlike Michael Seresin's cinematography, whose spare lighting compliments a sense of freedom by illuminating scenes set on the outside lushly, and, through contrast, emphasizes the heavy shadows in the prison and immerses you into this drama's world and atmosphere. Smith, Randy Quaid, Mike Kellin, Bo Hopkins, and John Hurt, and was adapted into the screenplay by Oliver Stone.Hayes and others criticized the film for portraying the Turkish prison men as violent and villainous and for deviating too much from the source material. With a shock he realized it was the same book from his childhood, the book which contained the story of Midnight Express’. The prison's great crime seems to be disrespect to a guard; such other behavior as drug abuse, black marketeering and sexual privateering is treated with benign neglect.

A gripping story about a young man on the wrong side of the law in Turkey, where punishment is harsh when one tries to smuggle drugs out of the country. But he was a sucker for any slick character who would come along and promise that for a certain amount of money, he could promise to get his son released. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged.Speaking through a translator, with a mixture of anger and pity in his voice, the chief judge tells Billy that his hands are tied by Ankara and has no choice but to give him a life sentence. Regardless of your opinions on Bill's poor decision making and how he ended up in prison in the first place, the book does make compelling reading and he gets full marks for honesty. Billy says that he bought the hashish from a taxicab driver and offers to help the police track him down in exchange for his release.