How Far Would You Go?. Review on Brokedown Palace Movie

Alice (Claire Danes) and Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) are recently graduated from High School and are on their way to Hawaii when they both decide to go to Thailand instead. They have been friends since they were two years old and have remained the best of friends. They do not tell their other friends or family of this change in travel plans and find themselves in the midst of a most charming and exotic land.

The background countryside and city scenes are beautiful and well done, although this movie was not actually filmed in Thailand but in the Philippines. The location of the movie posed several adjustments: Changing the streets from right to left, signs from English to Thai and many of the buildings and artistic nuances of the town. The Thai prison is a transformed Mental Institution. Thailand was portrayed in such an unfavorable light that this was the cause for the relocation of the filming.

The two friends are taking advantage of the upper class area and find themselves at a hotel poolside drinking Daquiris when they meet a young Australian man, Nick Parks. Nick is not what he appears to be and soon has Claire and Darlene questioning each other's loyalty, both having spent intimate time alone with him, and later find themselves thrown in prison for trying to smuggle Heroin to Hong Kong.

The story is very basic but Kate Beckinsale and Claire Danes are so engaging to watch that it is clear that this story truly is more about their friendship and what one would sacrifice for the other. Some of the side plots are thin, but were not distracting. Bill Pullman and Jacqueline Kim are affective in their roles as the two married attorneys that are trying to advocate their release. There is very little drama with these two and the legalities of the girls' case but as a secondary storyline to that of the girls it suffices.

By the movie's end, I felt very deeply for Claire and Darlene and how the film reconciled itself. The soundtrack was excellent and helped with the positive sense that I had throughout. Great songs by both Sarah McLaughhlin and Sarah Brightman and all those in between, including the score. If you see this film, don't look through all the thin subplots but for the true genius of Alice and Darlene and their friendship.

Since it came out in 1999, I have wanted to see Brokedown Palace, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, who is better known for The Accused with Jodie Foster. He has also written for episodes of Law and Order: SVU and ER and am not at all sorry I made time to see it now.