![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/b/brokedownpalace.jpg)
Brokedown Palace
Brokedown Palace is one of those movies about American tourists unwittingly and/or naively ensnared into the high-risk practice of international drug trafficking. Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale star as traveling teenagers following a whim to Thailand and ending up in an unsanitary clink. As directed by Jonathan Kaplan, it feels like a staged-reading of a rough script outline. The Thai lock-up is tame and the girls' experience is unconvincingly sterile in its half-ass squalor. The only spark this movie has to offer is the dynamic superstar presence of Bill Pullman as a shyster barrister who defends the heroines with all the charisma and intelligence of a bamboo toothbrush. Presented in 2.35:1 widescreen and both DD 5.1 and Dolby 2.0 Surround. Trailer, keep case.
—Gregory P. Dorr
