This riveting, awe-inspiring, true story and winner of 2 Academy Awards will take your breath away. In addition, it'll make your heart pound hard and race with gripping fear and your eyes will not believe the horrors that this 20 year old man suffered, in a Turkish prison for attempting to smuggle drugs out of that country. Unimaginable sadism, violence, starvation, corruption, deliberate and prolonged cruelty, repeated psychological torture and brutality personified, were consistently for 5 years, performed upon this undeserving man. You will be mute with shock and enraged at even the thought that in the 20th century, an  American citizen, a young tourist was subjected to such unwarranted creative savagery by the archaic, Turkish prison system. So much so, that upon his ingenious escape, the American government stepped in. And in valiant defense of one of it's own and in the name of human rights, exposed and forced the Turkish government to treat Americans, others from around the world and even their own who were incarcerated, with humanitarian rights and human dignity. This man exposed a brutal, foreign, dehumanizing penal system which the Turkish government sanctioned and practiced daily. Within the unsanitary, uninhabitable, jail cells of which this young man found himself a part, of. Having almost lost his sanity..., his only thread of hanging on to survival was a visit from his father, his girlfriend, an attorney and the hope of freedom. His daring escape made history and you will undoubtedly be moved to cheering with tears running down your face at this man's courageous battle for freedom and the way that he finally, obtained it. His tenacity in not giving up was not only commendable but absolutely, inspiring. This film is a magnificent portrayal of 'liberty lost and liberty found', as one man breaks through the choke hold of tyranny and the shackles of unwarranted servitude, to obtain the prize of FREEDOM! Nina Kish