Movies - Brokedown Palace

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	Movies - Brokedown Palace

Brokedown Palace (1999) is an American film directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale. It is also a song by the Grateful Dead and a novel by Steven Brust (not related to the film).

Plot

Tagline: They were willing to go anywhere for the perfect summer. Until a stranger changed everything.

Lifelong best friends Alice Marano (Danes) and Darlene Davis (Beckinsale), change their pre-college summer vacation destination from Hawaii to Thailand. While there, they meet a captivating Australian man, Nick Parks (Lapaine), who befriends them and invites them along with him to Hong Kong. The girls are found with heroin and arrested for drug smuggling while preparing to board their plane.

The story takes an abrupt turn as the girls find themselves sentenced to long sentences (33 years, plus fifteen for an escape attempt) in a Thai prison, called the Brokedown Palace by its residents. The girls accuse each other of attempting to smuggle the heroin, possibly at the behest of Parks. They turn to an American attorney in Thailand, 'Yankee' Hank Green (Pullman), in hopes that he can free them.

Cast

Claire Danes
– Alice Marano
Kate Beckinsale
– Darlene Davis
Bill Pullman
– 'Yankee' Hank Green
Jacqueline Kim – Yon Greene
Lou Diamond Phillips
– Roy Knox
Daniel Lapaine – Nick Parks
Tom Amandes – Doug Davis

Similarities to real-life events

The story bears some similarities to the stories of Schapelle Corby, who was arrested in 2004 (five years after the release of Brokedown Palace) while entering Indonesia and charged with attempting to smuggle cannabis from Australia. Like Marano and Davis, Corby claimed that she was unaware of the drugs, and they were planted in her bag. In other similarities, Corby has received a long sentence and her defense has claimed that her trial was conducted in favor of the prosecution.

Because it presented a critical view of the Thai legal system, Brokedown Palace was filmed in the Philippines.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Brokedown Palace ]

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