Brokedown Palace (1999)

Best movie ever!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

In a relentlessly grim film, Lou Diamond Phillips gives a memorable performance in a near-cameo as American officio Roy Knox. His self-mocking, bottomless cynicism would be funny in almost any other film, but here the humour only deepens the despair.(I have not read all the 189 other reviews, so his performance may have already been discussed.If so, I apologize, but short as it was, it showed a range of talent I didn't know he possessed and thought it should be noted.)

I had heard about this movie but had never seen it until this week when I found it on Netflix streaming movies. I didn't think that much of Claire Danes back in the 1999 time frame, but she was so good as Temple Grandin in the movie of the same name, I approached this one with a fresh perspective. She really is a good actress and already was when this was filmed in 1998, when she was still a teenager.The story immediately reminded me of an actual jury trial I was involved with in the 1990s, as jury foreman. In a very similar real-life case two teenage girls were caught at the airport with suitcases containing drugs, and they claimed a mysterious man had bought their tickets and asked them to each carry a suitcase onto the plane for him. The man never was found.Claire Danes is Alice and her best friend is Kate Beckinsale (actually 25) Darlene. They had known each other since they were babies crawling towards each other in adjacent yards, and now they have just finished high school together. They are supposed to be going to Hawaii for a week, but on a whim Alice convinces Kate to go to Thailand instead. Their parents don't know.This is a familiar theme in movies, the more recent "Taken" with Liam Neeson also plays on the theme of young daughters not telling the truth about their plans for travel abroad.Naive, the girls meet an Australian man who invites them to Hong Kong for a couple of days, they go, and on the way back to Thailand are caught at the airport with a few kilos of drugs in the carry-on bags. They are put in jail, they get sentenced to 33 years. It looks bleak.One of them gets a tape recording of her story to Bill Pullman as American lawyer Hank Greene, married to a Thai woman, also a lawyer. Pullman plays almost the same character as Daryl Zero in "The Zero Effect", a 1998 movie. But here his motivation is simply the fee, and he gets the girls to have their parents send him $15,000. Not all goes well, when he thinks he has a deal to free the girls, it backfires and they appear doomed. It is a heartbreaking story, but very realistic as this sort of think can happen, and probably does more often than we realize. It took me 15 years but I am glad I finally saw it.SPOILERS: When Hank Greene finally unraveled the whole story, it is one of corruption. The Australian was a known drug smuggler, and on that particular flight had 8 young women carrying drugs for him. As his "fee" he reported Alice and Darlene, so the cops could find their drugs and arrest them, as a diversion of sorts to assure the other 6 went through. The cops knew about this, and being able to arrest the two girls was their compensation for looking the other way. In the end Greene was not able to get the girls off, but Alice did the right thing in her own eyes, she pleaded to the judge that it was all her idea, Darlene was completely innocent, she should go home and Alice would serve a term for both of them. And that is how the movie ends, with Darlene being freed and Alice as a convict perhaps for the rest of her life.

Brokedown Palace seems to be a hybrid between a gal-pal movie and a women's prison film. This odd combination does not work for either of these genres.This film tries to sell the idea that the two female leads , Alice (Danes) and Darlene (Beckinsale), are inseparable friends since childhood. It is a good thing that they go to such lengths to point this out because you couldn't tell that from either the screenplay or the performances of either Danes or Beckinsale.The story about the foreign imprisonment of the two girls from Ohio is difficult to believe. This creates a fundamental problem with Brokedown Palace since this is the centerpiece of the film. I do not know whether this plot point was based on any historical event but it appears to be entirely fictional.The depiction of the Thai judicial system is also problematic. While there are advantages to the U.S. judicial system relative to those in some foreign countries the treatment here seems self-serving and even borders on propaganda.On the positive side, Brokedown Palace delivers some compelling cinematography, some good musical accompaniment and some compelling scenes delivered by a solid cast.

I watched this movie 11 years ago in company with my best female friend. I got my judgment teeth pulled out so I didn't feel very good.I ended up liking it big time. It's a hard watch if you take in account that it deals with friendship, unwanted betrayal, power, money, drug traffic, and the extreme hard situation that deals with living in a foreign jail.The acting is on it's prime level. Two of the women that I lust the most star and that's a good thing. Claire Danes is as cute and charming as always while Kate Beckinsale is extremely hot and delivers a fine performance. Bill Pullman is also great and demonstrates his histrionic qualities.There are many plot twists to dig from and make it an interesting visual experience. Plus it shows the difficult times at Thailand.This is an underrated movie. Not many films like this one have come up in recent history. It should make you reflex about many things...