Brokedown Palace
*1/2
Rated on a 4-star
scale
USA
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan
Written by David Arata
From a story by David Arata and Adam Fields
CAST.....
Claire Danes..... Alice Marano
Kate Beckinsale..... Darlene Davis
Bill Pullman..... Henry "Hank Yank" Greene
Daniel LaPaine..... Nick Parks
Lou Diamond Phillips..... Lou Knox
Jacqueline Kim..... Yon Greene
Tom Amandes..... Doug Davis
According to Jean-Luc Godard, the best way to
criticise one movie is to make another. I hope Mr Godard would also agree
that one of the best ways to appreciate a good movie is to see one that sets
out to do the same things, but fails. If "Brokedown Palace" has
a use, perhaps that could be it. Its set-up is dealt with in 1978's "Midnight
Express" and last April's "Return to Paradise" -- one of which got an Oscar
nomination for best picture, and both of which deserved to. This new film,
from Jonathan Kaplan ("The Accused"), is as crass in its attempts at manipulation
as "Saving Private Ryan" without being half as good.
The early parts of the story, which are accompanied
by an embarrassingly unnatural voice-over, introduce us to recent high-school
graduates Alice Marano (Claire Danes) and Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale),
who have gone on a celebratory trip to Thailand. After checking into a $5-a-night
fleapit, they sneak into the Sheraton and get caught trying to scam free
drinks at the poolside, only to be saved by Nick Parks (Daniel LaPaine),
a smooth-talking Australian businessman.
Nick flirts with both girls, eventually spending
the night with Darlene, who he talks into coming on a trip to Hong Kong.
The plan is for her and Alice to go ahead on one flight, then for Nick to
join them the next day, after wrapping up his work in Thailand. But the girls
never make the flight -- they're stopped at customs, found to be carrying
large quantities of heroin and quickly sentenced to 33 years in
prison.
How did the heroin get there? Did Nick con one
of them into smuggling it for him? Or was he distracting the girls while
letting someone else plant the drugs? I didn't care. The build-up is crucial
in a film like this, and while "Return to Paradise" let us spend time with
its likeable, realistic characters, "Brokedown Palace" expects us to take
everything second-hand. Thailand isn't authentically captured, but we're
supposed to understand the excitement of a holiday there because the characters
smile throughout a cheesy montage of adventures. We're supposed to believe
Alice and Darlene are best friends because we're told so in the voice-over,
but they don't interact with any intimacy or honesty, and at age 18 are still
making laboured efforts to show signs of affection.
The girls are informed by fellow inmates about
an American lawyer, Hank Greene (Bill Pullman), who is known for taking cases
such as theirs. Darlene's father agrees to pay for Hank's services, and as
the attorney files appeals and gathers evidence, "Brokedown Palace" hurtles
into a last act that curiously mixes elements from "In the Name of the Father",
"Witness", "The Great Escape" and "The Wizard of Oz". Perhaps I've seen too
many movies. It's more likely that this one just doesn't know where it's
going.
By the end of the film, it was pretty obvious
to me that Alice agreed to carry the heroin to Hong Kong. The film never
admits this, or directly resolves or confronts any of the key issues -- it
just tries to make us cry by putting two pretty girls in a horrid place,
before closing with a smug grin. There's something ludicrous and incompetent
about the ambience of the picture anyway -- it's too brightly lit, shows
all its menacing characters with comically jarring camera angles and has
far too many shots of people looking aghast whenever they get pieces of
information.
Lou Diamond Phillips puts in an overwrought
performance as a US Embassy official, strutting around with whisky and cigars,
grimacing and groaning like a baddie in a cheap gangster movie. Danes is
painfully insincere and distant with her whining and moaning, and Pullman
is off sleepwalking on the same cloud, not that I can blame him. Only Beckinsale
has any life or presence, confidently inhabiting her character with seemingly
spontaneous actions.
It doesn't help. The characters, however well
anyone plays them, are so naive that they deserve everything they get. In
this day and age, if you're a well-to-do American tourist travelling in the
Far East, the stupidest thing you can possibly do is allow your luggage to
fall into the wrong hands before you board a plane. "Brokedown Palace" sets
out to be an important cautionary tale, but its sympathies lie in the wrong
places and it tells us nothing new. It should be forgotten by the end of
the year.
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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