If certain geopolitical and economic trends continue spending holidays in distant exotic lands is going to become thing of the past for all but tiny minority of people in Western countries. On the other hand, this might spare many Westerners of the problems like those experienced by protagonists of Brokedown Palace, 1999 drama directed by Jonathan Kaplan. The plot begins when two teenage best friends – Alice Marano (played by Claire Danes) and Darlene Davis (played by Kate Beckinsale) – graduate high school and decide to celebrate by going on vacation in Hawaii. On route they decide to go to Thailand instead, because it happens to be more exotic and much cheaper destination than Hawaii. There they meet charming and suave Australian businessman Nick Parks (played by Daniel Lapaine) who seduces Darlene and takes her to bed. Later he offers girls to accompany him in Hong Kong with paid plane tickets and accommodation. They accept only to get intercepted by customs officials at Bangkok Airport who find six kilograms of heroin in their luggage. After Thai police tricks Darlene into confession, both girls are sentenced to 33 years of prison for drug smuggling. Their story is heard by “Yankee” Hank Green (played by Bill Pullman), American who, together with Thai wife Yon (played by Jacqueline Kim) runs law office specialised in aiding Westerners caught with drugs. Due to long experience, he doubts their innocence and is more interested in collecting fees than pursuing justice. However, some of the facts he uncovered would make him change his opinion.
Producer Adam Fields has allegedly found the inspiration for the film while talking with young American women who were serving life sentences for drug smuggling in Thailand. Whether that was true or not, the script by David Arata has main premise strikingly similar to the plot of Bangkok Hilton, 1989 Australian miniseries starring Nicole Kidman. Most critics at the time, however, found similarities with Hollywood films like Return to Paradise and Midnight Express. Unlike those films, that had dealt with naive Westerners getting into trouble in Third World countries because of their disregard for local laws, Brokedown Palace tries to convince that in this particular case Western protagonists might not just be innocent, but actual victims of wide ranging conspiracy involving Thai people from all walks of life – from hotel maids to corrupt government ministers – with corrupt DEA agents added to mix. Thailand’s authorities, after seeing the script, refused to allow shooting of the film in their country, so the production had to switch to Philippines. There Claire Danes created additional problems for production with couple of undiplomatic statements about Philippines.
Jonathan Kaplan, experienced film maker who had number of interesting titles in his filmography, tried very hard to make Brokedown Palace as different as possible from Midnight Express, with a notable exception of that film’s racism. His efforts failed because the script never properly dealt with its mismanaged premise, making the entire plot unconvincing. Kaplan instead drenched the story with melodrama and cliches, while missing even some opportunities to make Brokedown Palace interesting with content typical for exploitation films. One example, noted by couple critics, could have been exploration of how would relationship between Darlene and Alice evolve if those young women had to spend years behind bars and without male company. Instead audience got something resembling Aaron Spelling’s soap operas, accompanied by moralising and unbearably bad dialogues. Even two actresses didn’t put much effort on screen, apparently aware that Brokedown Palace won’t be particularly memorable piece of their filmographies. The film failed at the box office and was poorly received by critics and the audience today really doesn’t need to watch this film to know why.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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