Brokedown Palace

Alice(Claire Danes) and Darlene(Kate Beckinsale) have been best friends since forever and after they graduate they decide to take a trip to Thailand. Due to a incident, they meet a young attractive mysterious stranger who invites them to go with him Hong Kong for the weekend. But at the airport, Alice and Darlene are mistaken for drug smuggling heroine and they are sent to prison. Now it's time for ultimate survival and true friendship. This was a pretty good movie, i've seen it a couple of times and after a while you notice that they are a few holes in the plot but the movie still keeps you entertained. Claire Danes did a great job as usual, she is a great actress. I would give Brokedown Palace 8/10

I'm a little surprised by the negative criticism this film is attracting.

I'm old enough to be the father of the two main characters; they seemed like accurately drawn teenage girls to me. And I've probably hung out with both of their fathers before. I've been to the Far East. I've stayed in both better and worse places than the girls stayed. I had the pleasure of seeing the inside of a police station after I was robbed. I'm glad I had no more direct exposure to the local judicial system than that; that was more than enough. Everything in this movie seems awfully familiar to me.

I think "Brokedown Palace" represents something pretty close to stark realism. It certainly reminded me of Asia.

Of course it's true that the attitudes of the girls often don't do much to improve their situation. But they are meant to be an example of what not to do overseas. And the portrayal of some of the Thais did make me uncomfortable. But then many of my own personal travel anecdotes don't paint a complimentary picture either.

This is a cautionary tale. An unfortunate consequence of too many people having too much money to spend these days is that you will find unescorted, unprepared, "streetwise", naive young people popping up in places where they have no business being. And when that happens, you end up with situations mirroring this movie.

I suspect people choose to denigrate this one because they are too embarrassed to accept how true it is, and how vulnerable they would be if placed in similar circumstances.

High on the list of sadly neglected and wholly underappreciated films of the past several years stands 1998's "Return to Paradise," a tale of three American vacationers who inadvertantly run afoul of the laws of Malaysia, two of whom must decide whether or not to sacrifice themselves and return to the brutal third world country to serve their prison sentence so that the third who has been caught can avoid execution. What is most remarkable about this film is that it manages not only to set up a fascinating moral dilemma for both the characters and the audience but, most amazingly, to stay true and honest to it throughout the course of the entire film.

"Brokedown Palace," whose plot echoes "Return to Paradise," falls several notches below the earlier film mostly because it saves its moral dilemma until the very end of the story. The resolution is a powerful one when it comes, but the delay robs the film as a whole of some of its interest. In this film, Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsdale play recent high school graduates who opt to visit Thailand instead of Hawaii and run into a sleazy young con man who plants heroin on them - an act for which, when it is discovered by the authorities, the girls are falsely imprisoned. The bulk of the film concerns itself with the attempts by an American lawyer (Bill Pullman) to clear their names and secure their freedom.

Much of the film plays like a rehash of "Midnight Express," as the girls are badgered and threatened through their interrogations and forced to endure the rigors of a Third World prison - although, strangely enough, the horrors seem oddly downplayed at times. These are the weakest sections of the film for the visualization of the experience seems almost too glamorized at times, as if the commercial-minded filmmakers didn't dare risk alienating these actresses' many fans by offending their sensibilities. Still, the situation is a ripe one for intense audience identification since who cannot empathize with a couple of fun loving adolescents caught in a nightmarish web not of their own making? Actually, the sharpest aspect of the film is the underlying theme of the scary part seemingly insignificant actions and decisions can play in determining the course of one's entire life. Constantly, the girls are forced to wonder "what if we had gone to Hawaii...what if we had not met the drug smuggler...what if we had not snuck into the hotel to order drinks on a stranger's room bill, etc." The movie also achieves some depth in its final moments as Alice (Danes) grapples with a major moral decision and discovers the redemption for a life built on a pattern of seemingly insignificant deceit and lies. She realizes that a person's character is made up of ALL the actions she performs in a lifetime, regardless of how trivial or benign they may seem at the time. In addition, she learns the often horrifying price true friendship sometimes demands - and her final actions betoken a personal maturation that helps lift her character far above the rung of conventional movie heroines.

"Brokedown Palace" may occasionally seem tedious in its details, but the thematic depth and moral underpinnings that lie within it make it a film worth watching.

Brokedown Palace (1999)

Who wouldn't have some curiosity and tension about two pretty young women (played by pretty young actresses, anyway), trapped in a Thai prison system for drug smuggling? But boy is this a clunky construction for a movie. First of all, the women are stupid. They admit to being stupid, but they are selfish and frivolous and you really couldn't care less if they went to jail. On the other hand, you can picture being in a foreign country and losing track of things a little and getting victimized and so you do, after all, get involved and hope for justice.

There is (sometimes) a tense progression of increasingly discouraging events, and the prison system is a tough place. And the sets and filming are really great. If only the writing was remotely convincing and smart. It's not. Even the direction is painful, emphasizing not the facts or some sense of possible realism, but an armchair version of what this kind of scenario might mean to two relatively innocent girls is just a little embarrassing. The director (Jonathan Kaplan) is the same one who missed a huge opportunity with some amazing material filming In Cold Blood, and he is, understandably, most known for television, which takes a different kind of sensibility. And it's also very slow, taking a few turns or progressions and stretching a two hour movie out of it.

It's a tough ride if you take it at face value. And it's a shame, because there is a Midnight Express hidden in here somewhere. There are some really gorgeous moments, aside from the travelogue stuff, and I think Claire Danes, at least, is a good actress. Just an example of how many elements it takes to align and get a great movie.

*** out of ****

Brokedown Palace has an intriguing premise: two best friends (Kate Beckinsale and Claire Danes) fresh from high school are on their summer vacation in Thailand, but are arrested for possession of narcotics, found guilty and sentenced to 33 years in a women's prison. Admittedly, I'm aware of several films with similar stories (Midnight Express, Return to Paradise, and Red Corner), and I must also admit I've only see one of those three aforementioned films, which might be why much of it felt fresh and engrossing to me. Either that, or it's just a story that's told damn well.

Bill Pullman also stars in the picture as an American lawyer named Hank Greene, who feels for the girls' plight and fights to prove their innocence. But the real focus is on Beckinsale and Danes, whose wonderful performances are the anchor to the film's drama and moral quandaries. Beckinsale's Darlene is the more reserved and quieter of the two, the kind of person who sort of follows her friend without question, and certainly not the type to take unwarranted risks (unless her friend persuades her to). She's almost a direct opposite of Danes' Alice, whose outgoing and semi-rebellious behavior is the indirect link to their current troubles.

I hesitate to give much more of the movie away, suffice to say that their friendship is what's ultimately put to the test, and watching the twists and turns (almost all of which are perfectly believable) in the story is utterly captivating. The film slinks to melodrama in its climactic moments, but still rings true thanks to the tour-de-force turns from Beckinsale and Danes.

It's an open-ended question as to whether or not either of the girls committed the crime of smuggling narcotics, and such ambiguity might upset some, but I liked not knowing for certain, and it's not as if it makes the final scenes any less believable. In fact, the ambiguity only makes it all the more compelling. Yes, the plot has its share of head-scratching moments (what purpose does that Thai girl who despises Darlene and Alice really serve?) and lacks subtlety on occasion, but it's a well-crafted film that boasts great performances, and has the guts not to cop out in the end.