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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.)

Best friends Alice Marano (played by Claire Danes) and Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale) are celebrating finishing high school by holidaying in Thailand. In Thailand they are befriended by Nick Parks who convinces them to travel with him to Hong Kong. Little do they know that he is using them to smuggle drugs into the country. While trying to leave Thailand they are caught with the drugs, arrested and sentenced to 33 years in jail. In desperation they hire a locally- based American lawyer, Hank Greene (Bill Pullman), to try to get them released.OKish drama. Had a very interesting set up and the plot was intriguing for the most part. However, it falters towards the end and the conclusion is rushed, implausible, trite and contrived. Could have been so much better.Decent, though not great, performances from Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman and Jacqueline Kim.

Brokedown Palace (1999): Dir: Jonathon Kaplan / Cast: Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman, Lou Diamond Phillips, Daniel Lapaine: Similar to Midnight Express and Return to Paradise only reduced tremendously due to its teenage delivery. Title refers to the destruction of fantasy to a dark reality. Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale are vacationing when a stranger invites them to Hong Kong where they are arrested for possession of drugs. Both girls suffer horribly and make a failed escape attempt. Danes sent an audio recording to a lawyer with her story. Setup is familiar and the prison scenes are standard with a conclusion of self sacrifice. Director Jonathan Kaplan does his best but this is not done on the same level he used on The Accused. The big issue is its familiarity and structure. It plays like a feminine Midnight Express with prison scenes in full overload of clichés. Their vacation is familiar, their time in prison is everything we expect, then Danes gives a halfhearted revelation that plays like a crowd pleaser as oppose to conviction. Bill Pullman as the lawyer is the best performance as he attempts to help these girls. Lou Diamond Phillips appears in a flat role. Daniel Lapaine plays the loser whom the girls hook up with thus leading to the trouble they land in. Theme of sacrifice is sidelined by its lame teen appeal that works against it thus bringing the palace down. Score: 2 ½ / 10

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.