BROKEDOWN PALACE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"We shouldn't be here," the frightened girl says on the tape that she's sent to their prospective lawyer in Thailand. "We're from Ohio, for God's sakes!"
No, Jonathan Kaplan's BROKEDOWN PALACE is not based on a true story, but most of it plays like some true-life tale that you've read before in your newspaper. Two girls, life-long buddies, have one big fling before they go their separate ways after high school. Where better than Thailand -- an exotic and beautiful country in which they've heard that you can live for an entire summer on $500?
As Alice, the poorer of the two, Claire Danes plays a good kid with a little bit of a wild streak. Kate Beckinsale, who was the best thing in last year's wonderful and under-appreciated LAST DAYS OF DISCO, plays Darlene, the slightly more naive of the two. Actually, they are close enough in looks and morals to be non-identical twins. Both are quite credible as likable, all-American teens who get sucked into a tragedy in which they quickly lose all control.
It starts off innocently enough. On a lark, Alice suggests that they sneak into a swanky hotel in order to beat the heat with a swim. When the waiter asks their room number for the food and drinks that they ordered, it's easy -- way, too easy -- to just pick some three-digit number at random.
After being caught, they are saved and later wooed by a handsome software instructor. Soon he invites them to go to Hong Kong with him for a few days, but he has to leave on an earlier flight. In the check-in line, soldiers with automatic weapons surround the girls and pull out drugs that have somehow gotten into their backpack. Before they know it, they're sentenced to spend the next quarter century of their lives in a Thai prison.
"I wasn't that scared at first," Alice continues on the tape that she sent to the lawyer whom they hope to hire. "I mean, I've had worse haircuts." The script by Adam Fields and David Arata has many such tonality problems. The girls are sometimes suitably scared and other times unrealistically flippant, as in the comment about haircuts when they are trying convince this lawyer, whom they've never met, just how desperate they are.
On a more positive note, the prison has the feel of a real prison rather than the overdrawn ones typically shown in films. The girls' problems include barely edible soup, a little sadistic treatment and bugs everywhere; but most of all it is the lack of freedom and the daily tedium of prison life that are their chief tormentors.
The best of the supporting cast is the ever-reliable Bill Pullman, as their disheveled and slightly sleazy lawyer, Yankee Hank. Hank, who really has a heart of gold, has an early scene in which he calls Darlene's father back in the states in order to negotiate his fee. Hank writes down successively smaller figures on his paper pad. Before Hank mentions a figure to her father, he has already negotiated himself down on his own price. Hank tells his wife and law partner that he doesn't care if they win; even the reduced fee will pay for a new car.
Lou Diamond Phillips, on the other hand, overacts with a vengeance as Roy, a smarmy, hard drinking, fast living DEA agent. Roy's agenda isn't clear, nor is his purpose in the story.
The funniest scene in the film, which is either boldly bad or terribly cute, has Hank threatening a corrupt official with the most awful retribution America has to offer. If the official doesn't help, he'll unleash Larry King and Barbara Walters on him. Once they start, the official's life will be unbearable. Imagine Barbara, for example, walking through Darlene's bedroom on national television as her sobbing parents say that it's just as she left it.
The story takes many turns along the way. Sometimes the writers are quite inventive, and other times they borrow heavily from similar movies. The best and worst of the story is its resolution. Your thoughts afterwards are liable to be a conflicting mixture of fascination and disbelief. The ending visual image is definitely the low point of the entire movie and the least credible.
BROKEDOWN PALACE runs 1:40. It is rated PG-13 for brief strong language, drug related material and some violent content and would be fine for kids 12 and up.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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