Midnight Express VS The shawshank Redemption
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS is better
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MovieChat Forums > Midnight Express (1978) Discussion > Midnight Express VS The shawshank Redemp...
you are so funny
shareWell, Midnight Express could be considered the cruel version of Shawshank Redemption: it'up to your tastes. If you are fond of action/violent movies you'll enjoy better Midnight Express than Shawshank Redemption. In fact it is much deep and moving, but I know that could be "boring", except for Fat Man's scene and Boggs'ones.
Personally, I'd preferred Tim Robbins' movie, because it chained together both scare and deepness, and I've never been bored. ;-)
Both great movies about the real importance of FREEDOM, however.
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Gian Marco Maffei
Another ridiculous comparison of two movies that really have no business being compared to each other. To just write them off as "movies set in prison" is demeaning and unfair to both films.
shareI have seen Shawshank Redemption maybe 50 times and have never been bored. After much hype from my uncle I finally sat down to watch Midnight Express. While it was OK it certaintly does not compare to Shawshank. There was much better character development and you could really feel the relationships between Andy and the rest of the inmates while in Midnight Express you can't even really feel the relationship between Billy and his suppossed lover.
shareIt would be a little more appropriate to compare Midnight Express to Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father. That is also a movie about a man who has been given an absurd prison sentence and is horribly mistreated while serving out his time.
although Tim Robbins' character in Shawshank Redemption is most likely innocent, it isn't fully clear to everyone that he is and anyone could originally believe that he murdered his wife. On the contrary, in Midnight Express the hero faces a total life sentence simply for trying to smuggle drugs back to America after being promised only four years, while in In the Name of the Father the hero is falseley and wrongly accused for the bombing of an Irish pub. Much better comparison if you ask me.
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"This is no mine. It's a tomb."
I think Midnight Express is light years better.
When I watch Shawshank, I feel as thought I am watching a Hollywood casted, directed, set up film...however, when Midnight Express is on I might as well be in a Turkish prison as it feels so amazingly natural and real.
Just my opinion, but Shawshank (while still pretty good) reeks of Hollywood B.S., while Midnight Express feels like the genuine article.
Cheers,
BIZARRO
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How many Turkish prisons have you been in then ?
It(Midnight Express) has been universally pilloried for being a total sham in its portrayal of the Turks and it's prisons. Read up on it.
I still think the film is fantastic, but to say Shawshank is the Hollywood fake is absurd when Midnight Express has already been outed as the fake.
Shawshank is so much better than ME in every way.
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Ya can't really compare the two, for one Billy Hayes was guilty of his crime unlike Andy Dufresne. Midnight Express was a true story, Shawshank Redemption was fiction. But for arguement sake if I had to pick one, it would be Midnight Express simply because it was more realistic & more brutal of a film & it was based on a true story, that's just my opinion.
shareI really like both movies, but if I have to choose, I like Shawshank Redemption better.
shareI love The Shawshank Redemption, especially the bond between Robbins and Freeman and some of the other characters in it are likeable, but I honestly prefer Midnight Express. I've seen this one a bit more and it does it for me.
Far more harrowing, bleaker and grittier. Also, Hayes was indeed guilty of his crime, as mentioned before, but how could you NOT feel sorry for him when he's given a LIFE sentence for what he did? I wonder how many years a murderer would have got.
Brad Davis was simply awesome in ME and he should have won an Oscar. You could feel empathy towards John Hurt's wasted character, too.
Midnight Express is probably my favourite film of all time and it's certainly a lot darker and more unpredictable than Shawshank.
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