BROKEDOWN PALACE
Alice Morano (Danes) and Darlene Davis (Beckinsale) are a pair of recent
high school graduates looking for a little excitement. Though they had planned
a week-long trip to Hawaii, Alice convinces Darlene to lie to her father
and travel with her to the more exotic Bangkok instead. Following the usual
pattern of their relationship, the more reluctant Darlene goes along with
the more rebellious Alice and takes the 24-hour plane trip to Thailand.
They rent a squalid room, which is all they can afford, but Alice sneaks
them into a posh hotel so they can use the pool. They almost get caught,
but along comes an attractive young Australian man (Daniel Lapaine), who
covers their drinks, parties with them for a few days, and finally invites
them to Hong Kong for the weekend. But while at the airport the girls are
stopped by police, who find several kilos of heroin in their bags. Next
thing they know, they're sitting in a room much more squalid than the one
they rented — a jail cell.
They are at first confident that they will be released, but the Chinese
laws don't grant suspected criminals the same rights afforded to those in
the U.S. Soon they are going to trial with the help of a local American
attorney, "Yankee Hank" Greene (Bill Pullman). Hank and his wife
Yon (Jacqui Kim) run a small law firm in Hong Kong and specialize in American
cases. But neither Hank nor the American embassy official (Lou Diamond Phillips)
is sure they're innocent; nor are their estranged parents. If they're convicted,
they could face life in prison, or the more lenient sentence of only 33
years.
Although it bears many resemblances to last year's excellent Return To Paradise, this is a very good
film in its own right. Danes and Beckinsale both give powerful performances,
and the setting achieved by director Kaplan is disturbingly realistic. Not
being too familiar with Chinese law, I can't be sure how believable the
Fields/Arata story is, but there must be something to it since so many recent
thrillers have had that subject. Like the two films mentioned above, this
one touches on the curious policy that if one admits guilt, one would face
a lighter sentence, even if one is really innocent. This is because of the
Asian courts' view of "moral character." Unless you can prove
your innocence, among crooked law enforcement officials who alter the facts
in order to make themselves look good, you might as well confess. Again,
I am unaware of the validity of this, and the film's believability rests
upon it.
An interesting postscript to this story is that in September 1988 Danes was banned from the Philippines (where the principal filming was done) for making "derogatory remarks," and condemned publicly by the president of that country. I wonder, had she not been a movie star, if she would have gotten a little more quality time to reflect on her "character." ****½