Brokedown Palace (1999)

Best movie ever!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Basically a couple of high school BFFs take a post grad trip to Thailand and meet a cute guy from Australia. He's a sleaze, but so are they. They end up both throwing him one, in sequence, within hours of meeting the lucky dude. Turns out he is not only using them for sex, but also for reasons more dangerous.This film would have been better as a spoof. There is one line that is sort of its pivot point, when Danes says "I wasn't that scared in jail, I''ve had worse hair cuts". They should have taken it from there and gone with the obligatory GIRL FIGHT:' Picture this : Beckensale " :shut up , clown nose, get your own man" Danes : f"stuff it, you pompous pixie nose Brit., without famous parents you'd be making BBC infomercials with that half sis of yours". Then they could spin round and round with a handful of hair. It could have been a slap stick bonanza, and they should have seized the day.Instead they go down the old movie of the week path, violins and all. The story is also sort of confusing, where its tough to tell who knew what when. Did they know about the drugs? Did one? Did both help plant it? I don't know if that is intentional, or if it's just bad writing. They also left you "hanging," literally, when it came to the "lesbe friends" overtones. Oh sure, Danes was pretty aggressive in some scenes (yikes), but they missed a golden opportunity to go anywhere with it.

Best friends Alice Marano (played by Claire Danes) and Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale) are celebrating finishing high school by holidaying in Thailand. In Thailand they are befriended by Nick Parks who convinces them to travel with him to Hong Kong. Little do they know that he is using them to smuggle drugs into the country. While trying to leave Thailand they are caught with the drugs, arrested and sentenced to 33 years in jail. In desperation they hire a locally- based American lawyer, Hank Greene (Bill Pullman), to try to get them released.OKish drama. Had a very interesting set up and the plot was intriguing for the most part. However, it falters towards the end and the conclusion is rushed, implausible, trite and contrived. Could have been so much better.Decent, though not great, performances from Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman and Jacqueline Kim.

My real quibble with this movie is that it seems - strangely enough - to portray conditions in a third world jail that are just a little too comfortable. At least that's my sense - having never been in a third world jail I can't honestly say what the conditions were like. Still, what was shown here was prison, sure, but it didn't look like the absolute hell hole I would have expected.That aside, this is an interesting film from a number of angles. The first is the drug smuggling angle, and the depiction of how lost as a foreigner you can be when you find yourself at the mercy of a justice system that you don't understand and that seems stacked against you. Darlene and Alice (Kate Beckinsale and Claire Danes) are a couple of American girls, newly graduated form high school, who celebrate by taking the trip of a lifetime to Thailand. Unfortunately, they get unwittingly caught up in a drug smuggling scheme and get sent to prison, and it seems that hopes for their release are pretty much zero, unless a local American lawyer (Bill Pullman) can pull some rabbit out of his hat. The portrayal of the Thai justice system isn't complimentary to the Thais - and take note. Saying "I'm an American citizen. I have rights!" gets you nowhere. This was a decent portrayal of the system, and a look at drug smuggling and the tactics that very well could be used.More interesting, though, is the study of the friendship between Alice and Darlene - a friendship that is tested by this. Lifelong friends, Alice has historically been the bad girl of the pair, with Darlene the good & respectable one. But it's Darlene who gets the pair into this mess by letting herself get swept off her feet by the smuggler, and in the end, the story turns into a powerful one of sacrifice as the girls' friendship is ultimately demonstrated by a noble and unselfish act on the part of Alice, who (bad girl past aside) was the one who WAS NOT responsible. In fact, the last 15 minutes of the movie are the most powerful scenes here.Overall, I can't say that I found this to be the most exciting movie ever made - which is perhaps appropriate. Life in a third world jail probably isn't "exciting." But it is an interesting look at friendship and how far friends will go for each other. (6/10)

Brokedown Palace is not the kind of movie I would ever like to see. I also did not like the movie when some Aussie man smuggled drugs in Thailand and accused Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale of drug smuggling. I would not go to that country no matter what after I saw this movie. In fact this movie stinks. I prefer to visit Germany to meet beautiful single women. Germany is the country I tolerate. I also would rather stick to the United States instead. After I saw some of the movie in the theatre including the false accusation of drug smuggling, I left the theatre and had my money refunded because I cannot tolerate this movie. If you are going to to Thailand to meet someone there who could be a drug smuggler, forget this!