Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale aren't as obnoxious in this saga about two teen American tourists abroad. In Thailand as I thought they would be, but unfortunately, the movie is just boring and unbelievable. They are on their way back home when they are stopped by the police and arrested for smuggling drugs, obviously innocent. Now they are in danger of being sent to a foreign prison for years, and a stay in a prison in Thailand makes an American prison seem like a stay at a Palm Springs Resort.

For some reason, the logistics of what happens here doesn't seem realistic, like the screenwriter get no research and just expects the audience to automatically believe this. The film starts out promising, but it never picks up and even though the situation seems dire, for some reason, there just really not enough interest in these two girls (who lied about where they were going to their families in the first place) to keep your attention. And even though I really wasn't interested in their ordeal, what I did feel after enduring it was a whole lot of depression for the time I wasted.

Brokedown Palace is the title of this film and euphemistic description of the prison that two young American women find themselves in after being caught in Thailand with a couple of kilos of heroin. Not the vacation getaway that they plan.

As it turns out I was in Thailand that same year and in the Phillipines where this movie was actually filmed as part of an Asian whirlwind tour I had planned for myself. I certainly didn't see that seamy side of Bangkok or Manila for that matter. But you know you're in a different culture and mindset even in the places that cater to American tourists.

Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale are a couple of teens from small town Ohio ready to go to college in the fall and lifetime friends about to be separated. While in Hawaii and away from their parents and the mores of middle America, the two decide to go off on a cheap jaunt to Thailand for an experience.

While there they fall into the hands of a smooth talking Aussie hustler who sets them up beautifully to take a fall for drug smuggling. It's a story told time and again, the concept of innocent until proved guilty is one that only applies in the Anglo-American world. And prison in a third world country makes our penal system look like country clubs.

Danes and Beckinsale do beautifully as these innocents caught up in a world they're not prepared for. Danes maybe more so because her family is less affluent than Beckinsale's.

Bill Pullman plays their American attorney in practice in Bangkok with his Thai wife and Lou Diamond Phillips is a DEA agent more concerned with the 'big picture' as opposed to these two young women and their plight.

But the best performance in the film for me is Tom Amandes as Beckinsale's father. It's established early on that Danes is the more adventurous of the two and Beckinsale probably just tagged along in their various endeavors. In any event the best scene for me in the film is when after Amandes visits Beckinsale and reassures her he's doing everything possible is when he asks to see Danes. He makes it very plain that she led his little sugarplum down the garden path and he hopes she rots there forever.

The narrowness of the streets is the same in Manila as in Bangkok, they weren't designed for automobile traffic. But one thing that the Phillipines didn't have and probably 20th Century Fox couldn't bring in was the sight of elephants and cape buffalo wandering through the streets of Bangkok. That takes a bit of getting used to let me tell you.

Still shooting in Thailand was out of the question given the way Thailand is portrayed. The film should serve as a warning to those contemplating being a tourist in a third world country.

Ex pat American Henry 'Yankee Hank' Greene (Bill Pullman) receives a tape from Alice pleading her case. Life long friends Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale) and irresponsible Alice Marano (Claire Danes) traveled to Thailand after high school graduation before leaving for college. They are befriended by charming hustler Australian Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine) who rescued them at a high class hotel. Darlene started going with Nick and convinced Alice to travel to Hong Kong. Two tins of heroin are slipped into Alice's bag and the girls are interrogated by the police. Darlene is tricked into signing a false conviction in Thai. Darlene's father (Tom Amandes) believes that Alice is guilty. They are both sentenced to 33 years. Embassy staff Roy Knox (Lou Diamond Phillips) is too jaded to find Nick Park.

The movie doesn't really work until the girls get arrested. That's when things start to get interesting. Before that, the girls are simple, naive and entitled. The movie is better to condense that section much more. That part is predictably bland. The girls' relationship gets better and more complicated in prison. Overall, there are other better third world prison movies around.