"One night in Bangkok, and the tough guys tumble," sang Murray Head in the musical "Chess." Unfortunately for Alice Marano (Claire Danes) and Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale) that lyric proves prophetic in "Brokedown Palace," the latest cinematic sermon about the dangers of visiting Asian countries. Fresh out of their Ohio high school, Alice and Darlene jet off to Thailand for a post-graduation vacation -- "Hawaii seemed so middle-class," Alice explains -- and wind up staying quite a bit longer than they expected after they're caught with two kilos of heroin in one of their backpacks.
Had the girls gone to the movies in the last few years they would have known travelling abroad will put you on the highway to Hell. Didn't they see "Red Corner," in which poor Richard Gere was framed for murder while on a business trip to China, or last year's "Return to Paradise," which found Vince Vaughn and his buddies rotting in jail after trying to export drugs from Thailand? No, they didn't -- and neither did anyone else, for that matter.
It's unlikely "Palace" will attract much of an audience either, since it's about as thrilling as a long line at customs. The screenplay, apparently based on those recorded warnings played in airports, follows Alice and Darlene on a downward spiral as they hook up with a slick blond Australian (Daniel Lapaine) who offers to fly them to Hong Kong for a weekend of high times. Instead, the duo are railroaded by shifty bureaucrats into a prison populated entirely by stock characters (the easy-going Jamaican, the inscrutable dragon lady, the jaded Englishwoman, etc.); somewhere, the Hawaii tourism board is chuckling.
If "Palace" aims to be the female version of "Midnight Express," it consistently rings false. For one thing, the jail is frequently shot through gauzy golden filters, making it look more like a dullish day camp than the nightmarish hole everyone keeps insisting it is. Secondly, even though Darlene and Alice are supposed to be naive, they keep doing such foolish things -- signing statements they can't read, plotting escapes within earshot of their enemies -- you can't help but feel they're to blame for their bad luck, not the Thai court system.
Director Jonathan Kaplan, seemingly aware of the script's failings, often resorts to dreamy montages of his stars to fill out half-baked scenes. These sequences are accompanied by ethereal dance-trance songs by Delirium and Sarah Brightman, and though the music doesn't really jibe with the action, it's a lot easier to listen to than David Arata's stale dialogue.
Through it all, Danes and Beckinsale struggle to bring some conviction to a story sorely in need of it. Though Danes occasionally has to strain to hit Alice's emotional peaks, she's a good deal more credible here than she was playing a former junkie in the disasterous "Mod Squad," and Beckinsale, the fabulous British actress who did memorable work last year in "Shooting Fish" and "The Last Days of Disco," eloquently captures Darlene's confusion and despair. As the lawyer who tries to spring them, Bill Pullman is undermined by an unconvincing character. James Sanford
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