Digital, Cable and Satellite Television: Pick of the Day

THE TURKISH government com-plained vociferously about Alan Parker's Midnight Express (10.10pm FilmFour) - I imagine the Tourist Board weren't too happy about it, either. In a way, those protests are a testament to the film's power. A stranger to understatement, the director has a characteristically emotive approach to his material - the brutal treatment of an American drug smuggler in a Turkish jail. This Oscar-winning drama stars Brad Davis as the prisoner desperate for a way out of this hellish regime. In one of his definitive roles, John Hurt plays the wasted old lag on hand with advice about how to escape.

Bruce Willis (right), currently doing mega box-office business in Sixth Sense, stars as a cab driver trying to save the world in The Fifth Element (8pm Sky Premier), a typically stylish sci-fi thriller from Luc Besson.