Brokedown Palace (1999)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Jonathan Kaplan

Writers (WGA):

Adam Fields (story) &
David Arata (story) ...

Release Date:

13 August 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

What is your dream? How far would you go? Who could you trust?

Plot:

Two women are arrested for smuggling while vacationing in Thailand.

Plot Keywords:

Thailand | Friend | Hong Kong | Lawyer | Smuggling

Cast

Claire Danes	...	Alice Marano
Kate Beckinsale	...	Darlene Davis
Bill Pullman	...	Hank Greene
Jacqueline Kim	...	Yon Greene
Lou Diamond Phillips	...	Roy Knox
Daniel Lapaine	...	Nick Parks
Tom Amandes	...	Doug Davis
Aimee Graham	...	Beth Ann Gardener
John Doe	...	Bill Marano
Kay Tong Lim	...	Chief Detective Jagkrit
Beulah Quo	...	Guard Velie
Henry O	...	Emissary to Crown
Bahni Turpin	...	Jamaican Prisoner
Amanda De Cadenet	...	English Prisoner
Intira Jaroenpura	...	Prisoner Shub

Also Known As:

Two Girls (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, drug related material and some violent content.

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Thai

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Singapore:NC-16 (DVD rating) | Singapore:PG (theatrical rating) | Finland:K-11 (2005) | Finland:K-12 (2000) | Taiwan:R-12 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | New Zealand:M | Norway:11 | Peru:14 | South Korea:12 | Sweden:11 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #36385) | Philippines:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Bangkok, Thailand

Company:

Adam Fields Productions

Trivia:

Filmed in the Philippines due to the unfavorable portrayal of Thailand. This involved converting a mental institute to the prison and changing street signs from English to Thai.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: At the end of the tape that Alice sends to Hank, the tape visibly stops before the last few sentences of her narrative are heard.

Quotes:

[first lines]
'Yankee' Hank Green: I scheduled the hearing for the Burmese.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "HBO First Look: Brokedown Palace (#6.7)" (1999)

Soundtrack:

Even When I'm Sleeping

A film about the power of friendship.

We all have friends. Some of us have more than others but there really are only one or two people that you feel really close with, people that you can say are like your brother or sister. Alice ( Danes )and Darlene ( Beckinsale ) are like that. You can see that from the beginning. They graduated together, they go to parties together and they decide to go to Bangkok together when they were supposed to be going to Hawaii. They also get busted for attempting to smuggle drugs into a third world country and that spells disaster. The rest of the film is about survival and not giving up hope. It also has a strong message about the power of friendship and what it can mean to someone.

Brokedown Palace is a very good film, it is not excellent and that is due to a few issues that I want to talk about. But first I want to say what is good about the film. And for starters the acting is top notch, and you can look no further than the two leads. Danes and Beckinsale are perfect in the roles that they have. Alice is always fiery and seems a little rough around the edges, but she seems more fun than Darlene. But sometimes that fun can get her into trouble. Darlene is always a little on the conservative side and although that can get irritating sometimes, it would have served the two girls better if her way was adhered to instead of Alice's. Bill Pullman is adequate as the American lawyer living in Thailand. The film is photographed very well also. The inside of the prison while not the same as Shawshank or Natural Born Killers or Return To Paradice, but it does show the necessary ( but underdone) hopelessness of the situation that they are in. Johnathin Kaplan's direction is quite good as well. We see the two girls struggling to make it through each day but you can see their spirit is being put out a little more each day. Brokedown Palace is excellent when it talks about friendship and it shows how they have to rely on each other to survive. The other thing that I had to comment on is the soundtrack for the film. It heightens and compliments the mood of the film to perfection. The song that you hear in the trailer is also played in the film and when it plays you feel the plight of the women in this prison. You can feel how alone they must feel and how desperate they are to get out and get back to the simple things in life. And it also makes you look at yourself and realize how lucky we are to live in the society that we do. We have it easy compared to some country's and believe it or not the music is a perfect catalyst for reflection on this subject. Some of the music is done by a group called Delirium ( I think ) but it is Sara McLaughlin( wrong spelling, but how do you spell her last name? ) that does the lyrics and her voice is beautiful and haunting and it adds so much to the film.

What I didn't enjoy about the film was some of the stupidity that the girls exhibit. I won't say what it is that they do but when you see it for yourself you'll know what I am talking about. Also I didn't really feel that the prison they were in was all that bad. It looked more like a minimum security prison and that may be because when there are similar circumstances in other films that invlove men doing time in a foreign country, the prison scenes are always brutal and sadistic. But I didn't get that here.

Overall this is a great film and it really does make you ask the question, " How far would you go for a friend? " That is a tough question and maybe one that none of us could honestly answer until put into the same situation. Let's just hope that it never comes down to that.