Katio Hine

Paperboy Film Review

Attention-deficit disorder operates on a new level in Lee Daniels' latest film, The Paperboy, a dizzy medley of romance, comedy, crime, and drama. Daniels, best known for his work on Precious, lacks any kind of rein on this fragmented, jumpy film. The storyline is fairly simple, but in Daniels’s hands it seems like a chaotic compilation of scenes from four or five different films thrown together in random order to create the mess of a plotline that tells the story of The Paperboy.

Adapted from the Pete Dexter novel of the same name, The Paperboy stars Matthew McConaughey and Zac Efron as Ward and Jack James, two brothers out to prove the innocence of Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack), a man on death row for slaughtering the local town sheriff. The film begins with the family’s former maid, Anita (Macy Gray), recounting the plot to an interviewer, although who this interviewer is or why he might be interviewing her is never explained. In her signature raspy tone, Gray takes us back to the sweltering swamps of Florida in 1969, where Ward is amidst digging into Hillary’s past with the help from his assistant Yardley (David Oyelowo), a debonair black Englishman whose skin color sparks controversy among the townspeople. As the characters are introduced and settled in, their eclectic, often misguided obsessions lead us into this film’s chaotic, perplexing storyline.

Van Wetter's pen-pal girlfriend Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) appears at the James’ doorstep, determined to help Ward’s team free her man from jail. Charlotte, an insecure, attention-seeking tart in her 30’s with a fetish for dirty letter exchange with prisoners, decides that Hillary is the love of her life. Likewise, when Jack meets Charlotte, he is immediately head-over-heels devoted to her. “As soon as he saw her, he fell in love,” Gray reveals, and that’s the only explanation we ever get.

Despite its promising premise, the storyline becomes overly saturated and drawn out just to fill time. At the start, the voiceover serves as a means to bind the story together, but as Kidman finally allows herself to be seduced by Efron, suddenly Macy Gray’s character starts talking to the audience rather than the interviewer. This, along with moments of random flashback and unprovoked fantasy, disconnects the audience by yanking them in and out of the flow of the film. As the story progresses, the original plotline is somewhat forgotten amid sex and scandal: it is never clear why Ward is so interested in the Van Wetter case, what makes Charlotte act the way she does or who actually killed the cop.

Aesthetically, Daniels is all over the place. While some of the film looks like a cheap soap opera, other scenes read like a Western murder mystery thriller. Some parts leave the audience in complete confusion, particularly in one unforgettable but completely irrelevant scene where Kidman’s character saves Efron from the effects of a life-threatening jellyfish sting. Upon noticing a limp, barely conscious Jack lying in the sand, Charlotte marches up to him, squats down, adjusts her bathing suit, and administers the antidote onto his swollen face.

What is so unsettling about this scene is that in Dexter’s novel, Jack is actually rescued by a group of nurses. In Daniels’ film, only Kidman is worthy of nursing Efron back to health: “If anyone is gon’ piss on that boy, it’s gon’ be me,” she hisses, shoving the other beachgoers aside. Other random twists and turns include gay interracial sado-masochist sex that results in Ward losing an eye, which does nothing to move the storyline forward, and Yardley revealing that he is not actually British but an American with a fake accent, which just makes no sense at all.

No criticism can be given to the cast, however, who all enthusiastically go above and beyond what is asked of them. In particular, Kidman’s total commitment to her trampy, over-the-top role is commendable. Unlike the regal, elegant image she frequently assumes, Charlotte is a sassy, untamed vixen who enjoys playing sexual mind games with dangerous men simply for her own entertainment. With a perfect mixture of precision and abandon, Kidman brilliantly portrays the vision of a self-destructive, oversexed Southern belle.

For all the acting talent and witty one-liners The Paperboy offers, it is nonetheless an extremely frustrating watch. The entire film is a mess, full of unfinished plot curves, futile visual gimmickry and scattered narration. The ending is much too rushed and there are a too many scenes that try to be taken seriously but end up failing miserably. This is a story that invites us to care about injustice, about coming-of-age struggles and about important social issues, but the fact that the script doesn’t really allow us to care about any of the characters is a major flaw, regardless of how fantastic some of the performances are.

Unfortunately, The Paperboy is a tale of a director getting in the way of promising film material with his muddled artistic agenda. Despite its star-studded lineup of actors, The Paperboy is full of distractions that blur the entire storyline and its underlying themes, ultimately leaving the audience underwhelmed and confused.

Cast and Credits:

John Cusack, Zac Efron, Macy Gray, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey

Benaroya Pictures, Lee Daniels Entertainment, and Millennium Films present film directed by Lee Daniels. Adapted from the novel by Pete Dexter. Running time: 107 minutes.

Katio Hine

“Love and Honor”

It’s heart over head in Danny Mooney’s debut film Love and Honor, a war drama starring Liam Hemswortb as a soldier who accidentally falls in love. Flying home illegally from Vietnam as wingman to his best friend on a mission to win back his estranged girlfriend, Mickey (Hemsworth) stumbles into a serious whirlwind romance with the beautiful protester-hippie, Candace (Teresa Palmer). Despite casting the well-known Hunger Games star in its lead role, Love and Honor fails to evoke emotional investment from the audience with its contrived and all-too-brief development of the relationship between Mickey and Candace. While Hemsworth delivers a number of sharp, hilarious one-liners, the unoriginal premise and rushed storyline make this film not worth watching.

Cast and Credits:

Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer, Aimee Teegarden

Lightning Entertainment presents film directed by Danny Mooney. Written by Jim Burnstein and Garrett K. Schiff. Running time: 100 minutes.

Killing (the) U.S. Softly

“America’s not a country, it’s a business,” scoffs Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) at a televised then-Senator Obama promising change and national unity. This is only one of many scenes that all serve as one big testament to Australian director Andrew Dominik’s sizeable directorial talent and story-telling ability in his cynical and aggressively philosophical film, Killing Them Softly. In his adapted version of George V. Higgins’s novel, Dominik tells the story of modern-day gangsters living in a dystopian version of contemporary America. While at first, it seems that the explicit message of a corrupt nation via archived televised political speeches doesn’t directly tie into the plot, it eventually becomes clear that America is a place in which no one, especially our political institution, has anyone else's best interests at heart. 

The plot begins with two young, greedy thugs who rob a group of men participating in a high stakes poker tournament run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), earning themselves $30,000 simply by disrupting a dozen angry, well-connected mobsters in the middle of a game. It sounds pretty dangerous, but there's a twist: a few years back, Markie once staged a robbery of his own game, pocketed the money for himself, and later bragged about it. So if his own game gets hit again, he'll be the first suspect. Now that the tournament has been robbed a second time, confidence in these illegal poker games is at an all-time low. Powerful, angry mobsters are missing a lot of money and the boss-men need to settle them down. The higher ups embark on a mission to find a hitman to kill Markie regardless of who actually committed the robbery. They don’t want justice, they only want to send a simple message: if you mess with their business, there will be consequences.

And so unfolds a core idea of the film: the disconnect between those who are truly responsible and those who have to do the dirty work and suffer any possible consequences of their actions. Peppering the movie with “uplifting” televised political speeches especially during the most intense of crime scenes, Dominik shows the audience that while the government can make empty gestures to buy time, the common men on the streets don't have the option to put their lives on hold. Each of his characters is painfully alone in the world, constantly disappointed by the actions and the ethics of others.

This is especially true of Jackie, the hitman hired to take out Markie and the two men actually responsible for the heist. Jackie explains that he prefers not to kill people that he knows, unsettled by the emotionality behind imminent death as people beg and plead for their lives. Instead, he prefers some distance from his victims, allowing him to "kill them softly." He wants to believe that he's the kind of guy who can detach from his own cruelness, who doesn't let the darkness of the world into his heart. But as Jackie gets more and more blood on his hands, eventually there's no one left on his side but himself. Although subdued at first, Pitt brilliantly reveals how inner anguish is slowly tearing Jackie apart, while Dominik shows us how corruption is tearing apart the nation around him.

            This is not your typical crime-mob story. Crime films have always been about desperate men trying to get out of desperate situations, but Killing Them Softly gives them plausible circumstances that make theft, murder, drug dealing and other bottom-feeder jobs seem somewhat legitimate, if only for the fact that they are available and offer substantial paydays. The powerful scene depicting a hopeless, crippled Markie hobbling away after enduring punishment for a crime he didn’t commit is perhaps the clearest indication that Dominik has no interest in delivering a typical thriller about criminal mobsters. Instead, he focuses on the bleakness of our future in America as we become more and more worn down into mere Darwinian species fighting for survival. Even Jackie realizes that it's a dog-eat-dog world. "We're all just on our own," he sneers as Obama delivers his speech about hope and a unity on election night. Despite what political leaders tell us, the government is looking out for the government, and we are all left to fend for ourselves.

Dominik controls the cast and the development of the story extremely well. The film is elegant and beautifully crafted, and in scene after scene, Dominik keeps his audience captivated, whether with creative soundtrack choices or with outstanding camera moves. He shining directorial moments lay in his bold ideas about how to shoot the few outbreaks of violence that punctuate the picture. When bloodshed does occur, it's both brutal and beautiful, as seen in one point-of-view slow motion scene that combines a car accident, a gunshot to the head, and chillingly tranquil music. While slow-mo hit scenes accompanied by ironically peaceful music are not entirely original, Dominik’s scenes are executed with unique camera angles and a plentiful supply of humor, suspense, and drama within the dialogue. With Dominik’s distinguishing techniques tied into a shrewd, ruthless critique of the nation, Killing Them Softly is a mostly actionless movie clearly made more from brain than brawn.

Wicked, cynical, and surging with furious political unrest, Killing Them Softly definitely wasn’t made for everybody. This film dissolves the naïve idea that America is a community, that we all care for one another, and that we remain in any way united. And if that sentence alone bothers you, there’s a big chances that Dominik's film will drive you absolutely crazy throughout and then leave you enraged. From the chilling opening shot to the cruel, bitter closing line, Killing Them Softly makes the metaphor about the current political and economic state of America absolutely loud and clear.

Cast and Credits:

James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Brad Pitt

Plan B Productions, 1984 Private Defense Contracts, and Annapurna Pictures (Matthew Budman, Will French, Brad Pitt, and Douglas Saylor Jr.) present film written and directed by Andrew Dominik. Running time: 100 minutes.

“Room 237”

From staged mooning landings to a forthcoming apocalypse, all conspiracy theories are welcome in Room 237, a documentary all about the true meaning behind Stanley Kubrick’s most well known film, The Shining. Director Rodney Ascher uses audio interviews as narration coupled with Kubrick film clips, creating a maze of fragmentations that emulates the feeling of getting lost inside the world of Kubrick. Room 237 isn’t about whether anybody’s theories are right or wrong; it’s about the obsession itself. It’s not simply a documentary about conspiracy theories; this film is centers around the love of film itself. Though not made for most audiences, Room 237 is a film in which all Kubrick fans will definitely delight.

Cast and Credits:

Produce and Screenwriter Tim Kirk presents film directed by Rodney Ascher. Running time: 104 minutes

Two Actors, One Room, and a Camera

Can a one-night-stand truly turn into a profound, honest relationship? This tough question is examined in 28 Hotel Rooms, a film that explores a long-distance affair that starts with a night of casual sex and grows into deep emotional involvement over a number of years.  Written and directed by longtime actor Matt Ross, 28 Hotel Rooms proves to be a rare accomplishment: the near-perfect blend of comedy and drama within a single love story.

Sometimes all you need is two actors, one room, and one camera. In this classic but perceptive love story, Ross gives 28-one night raw and candid glimpses into an evolving relationship. Opening with two strangers both in town on business trips in their first (and what they think is their last) fling, we see little more than sexual desire between the unnamed man (Chris Messina) and woman (Marin Ireland). After their night of passion over, he gives her his number to which she hastily responds, “I’m not going to call you.” But as the next hotel room number tells, she indeed gives the mystery man a call; and so begins perhaps the truest relationship of their lives. The personal story grows with the dilemma that they are both in other relationships; we even witness Ireland’s character getting married and having a child all while continuing her outside love affair with Messina. Their relationship deepens as the storyline progresses, enrapturing the audience with two simple unanswered questions: do they intend to be together outside of the hotel room, and how long can they put off making that decision?

Hotel Rooms is enriched by Ross' ability to go against the grain, beginning with the characters: She is a no-nonsense corporate accountant; he is a free-spirited novelist. He is outspoken; she is guarded. As the witty and charming novelist, Messina is a perceptive and decent guy. Ireland's expressive eyes and cautious, glowing smile convey a warm beauty. Yet, like her lover, she hardens when confronted with the realization that she can't leave her husband and child. Ultimately and appropriately there is no pat ending or answer to this tough but delicate story and Ross is careful not to judge these people by demonizing their actions. And when she and him aren’t judging themselves, he’s making her laugh, and she’s making him think, as though their relationship was something much more that just a simple affair.

What sets this movie apart from other typical love stories is the fact that the characters’ lives outside of the affair are never shown, allowing the audience to feel guitless while rooting for the two of them to end up together. Some may object to the film’s seemingly microscopic viewpoint in which we learn almost nothing about these two people except from what they tell each other. But Ross’s clever approach creates suspense within the audience, making us voyeurs into their relationship while still withholding critical information about the characters. This unique and daring directorial technique, coupled with the stellar performances of Messina and Ireland, are what sets this romantic film apart from and above other typical love stories.

The quality of the acting on display here is brilliant; it’s easy to assume the chemistry Messina and Ireland achieve on screen is the result of actors simply playing versions of themselves. It’s hard to remember that these humans on screen, interacting so raw with each other, are performing. The film is almost claustrophobic and, even when the audience knows the affair should end, each time Messina and Ireland are back on screen together, the chemistry and pull that they themselves cannot seem to break away from has us falling right back into bed with them as well.

Behind the cameras, Ross never shies from what’s happening. His cinematographer, Doug Emmett, composes beautiful, full frames, both far away and brutally close. In this world of hotel rooms and passionate night-long romances, there’s little room for middle ground. When these two fight, we see the sweat on their foreheads, the bulging veins in their temples, and the fire in their eyes. Then we’re shown the room full on, which seems small and lonely, almost too spacious for the audience to bear. It seems that Ross can do more with hallway shots than other cameramen do with entire films.

            If the audience feels a bit of repetitiveness on occasion, it’s only because 28 Hotel Rooms feels quite realistic in portraying the ebb and flow of an affair initially based around excitement and freedom that moves towards a unbreakable connection. Those who see the world in black and white won’t be pleased with Ross’ non-judgmental treatment toward his characters’ illicit affair, but 28 Hotel Rooms is nonetheless incredibly moving in its depiction of the challenges of making true love last – even if it’s a love that’s a betrayal of others. Overall, 28 Hotel Rooms is a clever, insightful examination of how every love affair eventually comes with strings attached.

Cast and Credits:

Marin Ireland, Chris Messina

OneZero Films Productions presents film written and directed by Matt Ross. Running time: 82 minutes.

“Amour”

Georges and Anne are a retired married couple in their eighties. One day, Anne has a severe stroke with devastating side effects, leaving her completely helpless and therefore, Georges’ full-time responsibility. While the actors deliver heart-wrenching performances, much time was wasted on long running scenes with little or no action that fail to move the story forward. Despite the slow pace, the plotline remains strong as their relationship is severely tested. The audience begins to care deeply for Anne and George through small but powerful glimpses into their lifetime together, and the horrors of old age are fully realized in the agony and beauty of their enduring love.

Cast and Credits:

Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell

Les Films du Losange, X Filme Creative Pool, and Wega Films (Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz, Margaret Menegoz) present film written and directed by Michael Haneke. Running time: 125 minutes.

“The Man Inside”

 A troubled young man must find his own identity and let go of his past relationship with his violent, abusive father.  In a city full of gang violence and murder, Clayton Murdoch (Ashley Bashy Thomas) struggles to overcome past trauma, using boxing to channel his inner aggression. While this film has a promising “finding yourself” premise, the performances of the actors are nothing short of disappointing and even laughable in some of the most “poignant” scenes. The biggest flaw in this film is the characters’ lack of development; most are simply randomly introduced and form relationships without explanation. While the flashbacks scenes are brilliantly shot, the storyline itself is not worth watching.

Cast and Credits:

David Harewood, Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan, Ashley Bashy Thomas

Scanner Rhodes Productions (Dean Fisher) and Urban Way Producitons (Ray Panthaki) present film directed by Dan Turner. Written by Dan Turner. Running time: 99 minutes.

 

Bad Kids Should Go Back To The Comic Book

After his underground graphic novel became a bestseller, it’s no wonder Matthew Spradlin was up for the challenge of turning Bad Kids Go To Hell into a motion picture. With the help of Barry Wernick, Spradlin served as both writer and first-time director in making his quirky, fan-favorite comic a reality on the big screen—a task that proved much too difficult for even the author to achieve. Even with a bestselling novel as its basis and an excitement-filled trailer on television, Bad Kids Go To Hell taught its audience only one important lesson: some things should be left in the comic books.

            It’s The Breakfast Club meets Scream in this horror-comedy flick, a combination that rarely mixes well into a cohesive plotline, especially in this case. Six high school seniors from different social circles are all sentenced to detention for gross misconduct (which they contribute to the stress and pressure of their upcoming graduation) and must sit locked in the school library for eight hours on a Saturday afternoon to think about what they’ve done. Little do they know, the library is actually haunted by a dead Native American man whose home was destroyed in order to build the library. Slowly, the teenagers are killed off one by one by the revenge-seeking ghost whose terror seems unstoppable and inescapable for those 8 long hours.

            The movie opens up with a classic reverse-chronology scene: the police kick open the front door of the library to find one male student, Matt (Cameron Deane Stewart), holding an axe, panting, and covered in blood, with the remains of 5 mangled bodies surrounding him on the floor. The film then cuts to a scene of the high school with “8 hours earlier” written across the screen and an introduction, complete with loud rock music, to each of the six stereotypical high school characters ensues: Matt Clark, the handsome but cocky rebel back from juvenile detention; Tricia, the spoiled, stuck-up princess who runs the school; Craig, the letterman-clad jock determined to make his father proud; Megan, the nerdy, inhaler-toting braniac who just can't seem to fit in; Tarek, the token foreign student and finally Veronica, the gothic, troublemaking outcast. As the film progresses, we find out the extremely unrealistic situations that landed each character in his or her 8-hour detention sentence, proctored by school psychologist Dr. Day.

            Tricia is caught for attempting to plant cocaine in 2 other students’ backpacks. Craig tries and fails to drop a punch bowl on Tricia’s head from the ceiling at the school dance. Megan rips off all of her clothes in the middle of class and performs a strip tease on a table for her classmates. Tarek steals mashed potatoes from a student in a wheelchair and an inhaler from Megan. Veronica pretty much skips every class and talks back to all teachers. And last but not least, Matt ends up in detention for tackling the prom queen, exposing himself in the middle of class, causing a student’s wheelchair to speed out of control and crash, and finally, hitting a dozen cheerleaders in the face with basketballs during gym class. Ah yes, it’s just another typical day in high school.

            The illogical storyline has a lot of holes and many aspects of the film (besides the haunted library) are completely unrealistic. While this film does have some hilarious one-liners and surprising twists, Bad Kids Go To Hell fails to live up to the expectation set by the success of its comic book predecessor. Its lack of cohesion outshines any positive aspects of the film.

            Looking back at almost every scene in the film, one can take away witty and hilarious moments from each of the characters, but the circumstances in which they deliver their jokes are totally impractical. As each student begins to mysteriously die a gruesome, far-fetched death, the remaining living students engage in silly, nonchalant banter and reminisce on their high school experiences in a series of flashbacks; meanwhile, mangled, bloody bodies of their classmates pepper the floor around them. Not only are the students’ reactions to the deaths unrealistic, the actual deaths appear pretty outlandish as well. Craig falls down a small fight of stairs and an entire crutch pierces through his chest, leaving his heart perfectly balanced on its wooden tip. Immediately afterwards, Veronica and Matt engage in a bizarre sexual encounter, any typical teenager’s reaction to a peer just bludgeoned and speared to death.

            While the storyline lacks understanding of human nature and overall plotline consistency, the heart of this film’s error lies in the ending. The students finally figure out that Craig’s father and Tricia’s mother, two big-wigs of the city, were the main funders of the library to ensure their kids would graduate on the honor roll. By kicking the Native American man off his property, the parents accidentally set the kids up to be killed off one by one, with Matt as the sole survivor.

As Matt looks around at the dead bodies, realizing he is the only student left alive, the lights briefly flicker off. When the lights switch back on, Veronica comes back to life and suddenly starts to laugh, beckoning someone to come out of the shadows. Dr. Day appears, revealing that he and Veronica are not only romantically involved, but share a dream to create a real-life storyline about how six students went crazy in detention in order to turn into a best-selling movie and make millions. As Veronica is about to kill Matt to complete the story with a suicide, Dr. Day strikes her on the head with an axe, claiming that she is “annoying” and he “is sick of her,” the logical reaction of any frustrated boyfriend wishing to get out of a relationship. Shortly after, a bunch of bookcases randomly fall onto a statue, which tips over and decapitates Dr. Day. The police enter, and the film is back at the opening scene, completing the cycle. However, Spradlin isn’t ready for the film to end quite yet and he’s definitely the only one who feels this way.

            The real ending reveals that the school janitor is actually the son of the Native American who was stripped of his land and murdered, leading the audience to believe that he sought revenge. However, the final scene shows the janitor conversing with Tricia’s mother and Craig’s father, who both agree that they are “glad the problem is taken care of.” This baffling conversation leaves the audience with several burning questions: How did the janitor know that Dr. Day was going to kill Veronica and that the bookcases would randomly fall on him? And why would he team up with the two people who kicked his father off of his land? Based on the storyline, it appears as though the writers went back over the film, found several holes in the script, and chose between two options: offer a random, unrelated explanation or leave the hole as is.

The disorganization of the general plot causes Bad Kids Go To Hell to fall short. The comedic aspect of the film seeks a relatable storyline, such as a day in high school detention, but the students all have bizarre, irrelevant motives and circumstances with which the audience can’t relate.  The horror aspect is promising in the beginning but turns into somewhat of a joke in its “the janitor did it” ending. While the actors gave decent performances, their lines were too awkward and their circumstances too unrealistic for any of them to shine. Overall, the stupidity of the plot and unsatisfying feel of the ending make Bad Kids Go To Hell a movie worth skipping.

Cast and Credits:

Amanda Alch, Marc Donato, Augie Duke, Roger Edwards, Ali Faulkner, Cameron Dean Stewart, Jeffrey Schmidt

BKGTH Productions (Barry Werner and Brad Keller) presents film directed by Matthew Spradlin. Written by Matthew Spradlin and Barry Vernick. Running time: 110 minutes.

Brokedown Palace: Film Review

Are the words “justice system” an oxymoron in Thailand? All signs point to yes in Brokedown Palace, directed by Jonathan Kaplan in 1999, an Americans-imprisoned-abroad drama that focuses on dark themes of betrayal and desperation. After previously dealing with judicial injustice in The Accused and with teens in difficult circumstances in Over the Edge, Kaplan took on the challenge of combining these two concepts in Brokedown Palace, the film that arguably launched Kate Beckinsale’s career and ultimately landed her the breakout role in Pearl Harbor in 2001.

Although producer/co-story writer Adam Fields and first-time screenwriter David Arata based their tale on numerous cases involving young, gullible Americans who are betrayed by foreign policy, the driving force behind the picture is not to simply expose the unfairness or brutality of foreign judicial procedures. Instead, it also largely focuses on the emotions and changes undergone by the two girls, best friends who unwittingly find themselves in horrific, seemingly intractable circumstances in this powerful drama.

Two carefree American girls embark on an overseas vacation that soon becomes a nightmare. Alice (Claire Danes) is a reckless teenager who wants to do something different to celebrate her high school graduation, so she persuades her more reserved best friend Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) to join her on a trip to Bangkok. Within a couple of days of their vacation, Alice and Darlene meet Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine), a charming Australian who serves as a personal tour guide and sweet-talks Darlene into a romantic assignation. He suggests that they join him on a 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 in the airport, Alice and Darlene are quickly tried and sentenced to 33 years in a hideous prison known to inmates as Broke-Down Palace. Their fate comes to the attention of "Yankee Hank" (Bill Pullman), a famous 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.

Although Brokedown Palace does focus on presenting the Thai criminal justice system as unfathomable and generally sinister, Kaplan manages to take an emotional spin on the theme of legal injustice as he gradually turns the film more and more into a story about desperation and self-discovery. As the film progresses, the audience begins to recognize a more powerful, overarching theme: the harsh realities of the real world- and essentially, the idea that life is unfair.

The heart of the film is in the performances of Danes and Beckinsale after they're sent to prison. One moment your entire life is ahead of you: college, marriage, kids, a career, a home, middle age, life fulfillment. The next moment all of that has been ripped away. Your future has been locked away in a foreign prison. One poignant scene shows the girls shouting across an open space to visitors-- friends and relatives from home, whose lives continue while theirs are on hold.

It is obvious that Kaplan had a very difficult job at hand: trying to make a realistic movie about the trials of feminine camaraderie set against a Third World prison. However, despite these limitations, he did an admirable job stirring up emotion from the audience and surprised everyone with the twist ending that focuses on the idea that there is still “good” in an unfair world, which is precisely the moral theme the audience is waiting for.

Admittedly, this film is short to do itself justice: it ends up skimming over points that you can’t help but feel should be made more prominent. The harshness of the jail, for example, isn’t emphasized enough, and Pullman’s character is underdeveloped, leaving viewers wondering why exactly he suddenly decided to help the girls at no cost. Accordingly, while the audience feels bad for the girls once they get into prison, it’s difficult to sympathize with them about how they got there - to follow a complete stranger by plane simply paints a picture of two typical foolish American teenage girls with which the audience can’t entirely relate.

Though the film has its flaws, it will stick out in the viewer’s mind for two reasons: the performances of the two young leads (arguably one of Danes’ best), and the braveness shown by the writers in throwing in an unexpected, heart-wrenching ending. Despite the typicality of the focus on foreign judicial injustice and a few holes in the plot, the powerful messages self-discovery and sacrifice make Brokedown Palace worth the watch.