From my favorite movies..

Absolutely the worst movie.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I had seen this movie years ago and didn't remember it until I just saw it again. I wanted to watch it to see the earlier cuteness of Kate Beckinsale. Now I can rate this movie since I'm into this sort of thing now. This is the kind of movie you just have to watch and form your own opinion of it because the story line is cut & dry and if I said anything about it, it would include spoilers and I can't do that here. But in a nutshell, 2 graduates decide to take a trip out of the country before they head into college. Something happens that prevents their return. The end takes a very unique approach to partially solving the problem they encounter. It was tremendously touching how it ends. Would you do the same thing for your friend, if you were caught up in that kind of situation? Now I've intrigued you to watch it. Go ahead, I believe you will like it.

Anyone who has seen the National Geographic Channel series "Locked Up Abroad" will understand how believable this story is. However, it would have been better had it been based on a real-life arrest.The only part that fails to impress and satisfy is the facile, somewhat saccharine ending. (Another element that rang untrue for me was the girls' age. How many parents would send a couple of graduating high-school seniors to Hawaii on their own?)The performances here are uniformly excellent and the settings appear highly realistic.I loved the musical score, and the friendship between Claire Danes and Kate Bettinsale was entirely credible. The always-excellent Bill Pullman shines as a lawyer who toils on low-glamor cases in Thailand but hasn't abandoned his ideals. It is perhaps a strength of this film that the nature and responsibility for the crime remained somewhat ambiguous.This should be viewed by every young person traveling to an exotic locale. When it comes to one's bags, one can never be too careful!

Brokedown Palace is a drama starring Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman. The story deals with two American friends imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling. It presents a critical view of the Thai legal system.Most scenes were filmed in the Philippines; and some panoramas and views were filmed in Bangkok.It was directed by Jonathan Kaplan.Two carefree Americans embark on an overseas vacation that soon becomes a nightmare. Alice is a headstrong teenager who wants to do something different to celebrate her high school graduation, so she persuades her more reserved best friend Darlene to join her on a trip to Bangkok. While enjoying sun and scenery, Alice and Darlene meet Nick Parks, a charming Australian who shows them the sights and sweet-talks Darlene into a romantic assignation, which is something of a surprise to her bolder friend Alice. Nick then suggests that they join him on a side trip to Hong Kong, but they soon discover that Nick's interest has been neither friendly nor romantic: he has hidden a large amount of heroin in their luggage and is using them as drug runners without their knowledge. When the heroin is found by customs officials, Alice and Darlene are quickly tried and sentenced to 33 years in a hideous prison known to inmates as Broke-Down Palace. Their plight comes to the attention of Yankee Hank, a renegade American attorney in Asia, but while Hank struggles with the court system to get Alice and Darlene released, they must deal with the living hell of life behind bars, and their own doubts about each other. The main lessons of this film are the following: friendship is powerful, don't trust strangers, nice girls shouldn't drink and sleep around. The film's bleakest moments, in the jail, aren't all that bad, and in this respect Brokedown Palace has nothing on the intensity of films such as Midnight Express or even Return to Paradise. Yet Danes and Beckinsale prove they are strong actresses, and their characters' friendship is suitably complex and believable. This is a tale of self-discovery and the ultimate sacrifice for a friend.It could have been compelling but unfortunately Danes and Beckinsale struggle to bring some conviction to a story sorely in need of it.

I'm pretty sure the goal of the filmmaker was to make us feel bad for the situation that these two girls end up being in. If it wasn't, than he is genius because he definitely made me feel nothing for these girls.Before they are captured by the police what do we see from these teens? Two girls whose only care is to go to a foreign country and not attempt to learn the language, cheat money form an already poor country, sleep all day, laugh at the actions of things and people foreign to them and follow around cute boys. THAT is supposed to promote sympathy in the viewer's eyes? Please. I was actually waiting for them to be captured.And the whole part where they plead to the police by saying they are American citizens is so insulting. It basically displays what people outside the U.S. think of us already; that we try to use or American citizenship to display our superiority in the world.I can't believe any one would think these girls didn't deserve what they got. At least paint a picture of two ignorant, yet curious travelers looking for a cultural experience. The movie as it is gives the viewer no reason to side with the protagonists, if you want to call them that.