Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Wordiezett So much average

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Python Hyena 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

ComedyFan2010 This is a common movie line about a horrible situation that happens every once in a while when people from better off countries go on vacations into more exotic locations. I haven't watched the movies other reviews compared Brokedown Palace to, so my review is not a result of having seen better movies.I didn't really get if this was a movie based on a true story. Some things that I found online say so but I couldn't find much information on the girls involved.The story idea itself is pretty good. I didn't find the girls were too stupid. sure, very young and naive. These days I would not fall for what they did, but who knows what would have happened back then. Never was in this situation fresh out of high school, but definitely remember that I was having way more trust in people. So it was not hard to sympathize with the characters.The problems in the movie come from certain cheesiness and unbelievable moments. The phrases used were very often very common ones. The lawyer suddenly wanting to help them without money being left was unbelievable and cheesy. The prison sure didn't look horrible nor were the other inmates where even the biggest bitch was nothing I would be too afraid of. The final decision of Alice and what it resulted in was like an ending when one couldn't come up with anything better. Sure she could have sacrificed herself for her friend, but the scene was just a joke.That said, what holds the movie is the great performance by the actors. Claire Danes is especially great. Her acting was brilliant and navigated the emotions of the viewers. I loved the scene where she hears from the lawyer that he believes her. Another thing that I liked is that even after it ended we were never told if one of them was indeed guilty. One keeps on repeating hat happened in one's head and find the answer. If only one would polish up the problematic parts I mentioned before the movie would have been much better.

sddavis63 My real quibble with this movie is that it seems - strangely enough - to portray conditions in a third world jail that are just a little too comfortable. At least that's my sense - having never been in a third world jail I can't honestly say what the conditions were like. Still, what was shown here was prison, sure, but it didn't look like the absolute hell hole I would have expected.That aside, this is an interesting film from a number of angles. The first is the drug smuggling angle, and the depiction of how lost as a foreigner you can be when you find yourself at the mercy of a justice system that you don't understand and that seems stacked against you. Darlene and Alice (Kate Beckinsale and Claire Danes) are a couple of American girls, newly graduated form high school, who celebrate by taking the trip of a lifetime to Thailand. Unfortunately, they get unwittingly caught up in a drug smuggling scheme and get sent to prison, and it seems that hopes for their release are pretty much zero, unless a local American lawyer (Bill Pullman) can pull some rabbit out of his hat. The portrayal of the Thai justice system isn't complimentary to the Thais - and take note. Saying "I'm an American citizen. I have rights!" gets you nowhere. This was a decent portrayal of the system, and a look at drug smuggling and the tactics that very well could be used.More interesting, though, is the study of the friendship between Alice and Darlene - a friendship that is tested by this. Lifelong friends, Alice has historically been the bad girl of the pair, with Darlene the good & respectable one. But it's Darlene who gets the pair into this mess by letting herself get swept off her feet by the smuggler, and in the end, the story turns into a powerful one of sacrifice as the girls' friendship is ultimately demonstrated by a noble and unselfish act on the part of Alice, who (bad girl past aside) was the one who WAS NOT responsible. In fact, the last 15 minutes of the movie are the most powerful scenes here.Overall, I can't say that I found this to be the most exciting movie ever made - which is perhaps appropriate. Life in a third world jail probably isn't "exciting." But it is an interesting look at friendship and how far friends will go for each other. (6/10)

Der_Schnibbler The movie is a predictable Hollywood version of a women-in-prison film. Since the sensitive little Americans have their sensibilities so easily shocked from the sterilized, fake society in which they are reared and bred, BROKEDOWN PALACE makes sure not to rattle their cages too hard. And so the girls do get in a rather tight situation but, naturally, nothing bad will REALLY happen to them: no beatings, no violence, no rape (or "sexual harassment," for you PC slaves), nothing truly challenging or out of the ordinary.What we have instead is a predictable little movie full of stupidly "ethereal" music (a breathy soprano over some kind of Enya-esquire track), a good amount of hugging, smiling, "touching" moments and, all in all, the established shallow emotional tone the American audience has been spoon-fed its entire, confined little life. Ah, and let us not forget a ridiculously, idiotically upbeat ending.The movie is women-in-prison for the US audience who will probably either clutch their children and vow never to set foot in Thailand, or for stupid little monolingual American teenagers who will clutch their own genitals and vow never to go to Thailand. Aside from that, let us of course not discount the reaction of the PC slaves who will be quick to start saying the movie is "racist" (or "xenophobic" or whatever useless non-word is in vogue nowadays) because it presents some non-white country as anything other than noble and angelic.If all you've ever seen in your life is mainstream films from Hollywood--and especially if you have no earthly clue other films do, in fact, exist--this will probably be a riiiiveting experience for you.