Brokedown Palace
This wasn't going to be a review of "Brokedown Palace", it was going to be a review of "Bowfinger", but the ticket droid at the neighborhood threeletter cinegoogolplex, probably still numbed from a Saturday night doing who knows what kids do these days, handed me a ticket for "Brokedown Palace".
I never even looked at it - got my two-wheeler load of popcorn and the "medium" 55 gallon drink and proceeded down the moving sidewalk to the designated theater, number 57, totally ignoring the marquee, and sat through the moronic slide show and the overdriven 100 decibel trailers and waited while the sound came and went and came again, just in time for the moovie to start. It was then, as I saw the name "Claire Danes" crawl by that it dawned on me that I might be in the wrong place, and that it might be a bit late to look at my ticket. D'oh!
A friend tells me that there are no coincidences, and that things happen for a reason, so what the hell, I stuck around for "Brokedown Palace" with Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman, Daniel Lapaine and Lou Diamond Phillips. Written by Adam Fields and David Arata, directed by Jonathan Kaplan. MPAA Rating PG-13 for language, drug related material and violence. Run time 115 minutes.
Claire Danes is Alice, her best friend is Darlene, (Kate Beckinsale) and they've both just graduated high school. Alice is of blue-collar stock and sees college as just more school, but Darlene, an ambitious scholastic achiever from the nicer side of the tracks, is committed to college, and Alice persuades Darlene to lie to her father - who thinks the girls are headed to Hawaii - and fly off to Thailand for a last fling together.
(This is roughly the same story line as the Beach Boys' 60's hit "Fun, Fun, Fun", except instead of a T-Bird, they fly economy, and instead of the hamburger stand, it's Bangkok.)
Once in Thailand, the girls goof around, shop, do touristy stuff, and very nearly get in seriously deep poop crashing a posh hotel pool until they are rescued by one Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine), - not the Wallace and Gromit animator - an affable and handsome Aussie who is, it seems, in the Orient traveling from city to city working for a software company.
Nick and Darlene hit it off, much to the jealous consternation of Alice, and as they paint Bangkok red, he offers to cash in a couple of tickets and treat the girls to a little side trip to Hong Kong. The girls, however, never make it to Hong Kong. As they are attempting to board the plane, Thai officials storm the terminal and find that the girls' bags contain a tidy amount of heroin - our naive American girls find they've been suckered into being unwitting drug-running mules, sacrificed as a diversion for the rest of the shipment.
The rest of the story revolves around their imprisonment in a Thai correctional facility, and their efforts to find a way out. The chilling part is when the girls finally realize that screaming "I'm an American" has no effect whatsoever in certain parts of the world. Their descent into the dark hopelessness of prison life in Thailand is swift and merciless. It got so dark there for a while, that I actually considered hopping over for a few minutes of "Big Daddy", but thankfully, that urge soon passed. There's "darkness", and then there's "darkness".
While in stir the girls hear of a local barrister named "Yankee Hank" (Bill Pullman), a smarmy mercenary who agrees to take the girls' case, after he decides how much he can milk their parents for.
This is where "Brokedown Palace" surprised me. It didn't climb out of the roach infested slime of the prison, it stayed there and wallowed around in the filth. The girls's hopes simply grow dimmer with each failed attempt at obtaining their release. Seems the Thai government has a particularly nasty attitude toward drug smugglers. Go figure.
That's all you get. From here on out, the girls have to come to grips with the notion of being in prison for a few decades, and they have to look for strengths they've never tapped before. One thing that makes "Brokedown Palace" worth watching is that you'll get a real appreciation for life in the good ol' USA, flawed though it may sometimes be.
Throughout "Brokedown Palace", cinematographer Tom Sigel uses a number of techniques to pull you closer to the characters, most notably the powerfully subtle use of long lenses to flatten perspective and limit focus. He then widens out as he takes you through the prison yard to accentuate the vast feeling of emptiness. Nice work.
While I really had intended to see "Bowfinger", and could have used a few laughs today, "Brokedown Palace" was worth watching. I'm glad I stuck around to see it. You should see it when you're a bit on the "high" side of your bipolar disorder. It'll help you even out without any nasty medicinal taste. Worked for me.
I gave "Brokedown Palace" three cows.
I never even looked at it - got my two-wheeler load of popcorn and the "medium" 55 gallon drink and proceeded down the moving sidewalk to the designated theater, number 57, totally ignoring the marquee, and sat through the moronic slide show and the overdriven 100 decibel trailers and waited while the sound came and went and came again, just in time for the moovie to start. It was then, as I saw the name "Claire Danes" crawl by that it dawned on me that I might be in the wrong place, and that it might be a bit late to look at my ticket. D'oh!
A friend tells me that there are no coincidences, and that things happen for a reason, so what the hell, I stuck around for "Brokedown Palace" with Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman, Daniel Lapaine and Lou Diamond Phillips. Written by Adam Fields and David Arata, directed by Jonathan Kaplan. MPAA Rating PG-13 for language, drug related material and violence. Run time 115 minutes.
Claire Danes is Alice, her best friend is Darlene, (Kate Beckinsale) and they've both just graduated high school. Alice is of blue-collar stock and sees college as just more school, but Darlene, an ambitious scholastic achiever from the nicer side of the tracks, is committed to college, and Alice persuades Darlene to lie to her father - who thinks the girls are headed to Hawaii - and fly off to Thailand for a last fling together.
(This is roughly the same story line as the Beach Boys' 60's hit "Fun, Fun, Fun", except instead of a T-Bird, they fly economy, and instead of the hamburger stand, it's Bangkok.)
Once in Thailand, the girls goof around, shop, do touristy stuff, and very nearly get in seriously deep poop crashing a posh hotel pool until they are rescued by one Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine), - not the Wallace and Gromit animator - an affable and handsome Aussie who is, it seems, in the Orient traveling from city to city working for a software company.
Nick and Darlene hit it off, much to the jealous consternation of Alice, and as they paint Bangkok red, he offers to cash in a couple of tickets and treat the girls to a little side trip to Hong Kong. The girls, however, never make it to Hong Kong. As they are attempting to board the plane, Thai officials storm the terminal and find that the girls' bags contain a tidy amount of heroin - our naive American girls find they've been suckered into being unwitting drug-running mules, sacrificed as a diversion for the rest of the shipment.
The rest of the story revolves around their imprisonment in a Thai correctional facility, and their efforts to find a way out. The chilling part is when the girls finally realize that screaming "I'm an American" has no effect whatsoever in certain parts of the world. Their descent into the dark hopelessness of prison life in Thailand is swift and merciless. It got so dark there for a while, that I actually considered hopping over for a few minutes of "Big Daddy", but thankfully, that urge soon passed. There's "darkness", and then there's "darkness".
While in stir the girls hear of a local barrister named "Yankee Hank" (Bill Pullman), a smarmy mercenary who agrees to take the girls' case, after he decides how much he can milk their parents for.
This is where "Brokedown Palace" surprised me. It didn't climb out of the roach infested slime of the prison, it stayed there and wallowed around in the filth. The girls's hopes simply grow dimmer with each failed attempt at obtaining their release. Seems the Thai government has a particularly nasty attitude toward drug smugglers. Go figure.
That's all you get. From here on out, the girls have to come to grips with the notion of being in prison for a few decades, and they have to look for strengths they've never tapped before. One thing that makes "Brokedown Palace" worth watching is that you'll get a real appreciation for life in the good ol' USA, flawed though it may sometimes be.
Throughout "Brokedown Palace", cinematographer Tom Sigel uses a number of techniques to pull you closer to the characters, most notably the powerfully subtle use of long lenses to flatten perspective and limit focus. He then widens out as he takes you through the prison yard to accentuate the vast feeling of emptiness. Nice work.
While I really had intended to see "Bowfinger", and could have used a few laughs today, "Brokedown Palace" was worth watching. I'm glad I stuck around to see it. You should see it when you're a bit on the "high" side of your bipolar disorder. It'll help you even out without any nasty medicinal taste. Worked for me.
I gave "Brokedown Palace" three cows.
