It's somebody's idea of a cruel joke: hire two of the most beautiful actresses in the known universe and slather them in grime and grit and stink for the better part of one hundred minutes. While the characters don't seem to mind ("I've had worse haircuts," remarks Claire Danes' Alice Marano of being sentenced to thirty-three years in a third-world penal colony), the intended audience for Brokedown Palace--teenagers unfamiliar with Midnight Express--had an adverse reaction to the thought of watching a couple of starlets wallow in a world of piss and roaches and American embassy higher-ups who look like Lou Diamond Phillips. As did most other moviegoers, the "Tiger Beat" crowd stayed away.

In the mood for adventure, Alice and Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale)--the former a self-proclaimed rebel, the latter a daddy's girl--secretly change their summer-before-college vacation plans from Hawaii to Thailand, where they meet a swarthy Australian charmer by the name of Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine). Having agreed to catch up with him in Hong Kong for a weekend, Alice and Dar are caught at the airport with a few kilos of heroin stashed in their belongings. Were they unwitting accomplices in Nick's smuggling operation? Thai police officials fudge Dar's statement into a confession, and so the best friends wind up in prison together. Their only hope for freedom is "Yankee Hank" Green (Pullman), a U.S.-born ambulance chaser practicing abroad.

Alice sends Hank her (uniquely unconcerned-sounding) oral account of the events leading up to the arrest, though whence she obtained a taperecorder, blank cassettes, and an hour or so of downtime is never explained. Hank takes the case only for a significant retainer from Darlene's father, but becomes involved in the plight of Alice in particular to the point where money is no longer an issue. His legal wrangling may save them both, so long as he can prove the existence of Nick Parks.

Brokedown Palace could be much more devastating under the R-rating. Its soft depiction of a Thailand prison contradicts well-documented and inexcusable conditions of confinement. Our heroines are inconvenienced by the filth instead of mortified by it. They don't even curse! The only glimmer of menace comes from an anti-American inmate, but her evil is resigned to a few leering close-ups.

An ex-drug dealer recently published his memories of doing time in an Asian country, where he was forced to bathe in human waste up to his neck for disrespecting authority; where he contracted AIDS from sharing unsterilized needles (the very same drugs that won him his conviction were supplied by the government to distract prisoners from thoughts of suicide). Alice flips a prison guard the bird and pays no price; she also smokes pot--once--and is reprimanded by Dar, the model citizen. About twelve years ago, Jonathan Kaplan directed The Accused, an unflinching portrait of a rape and its aftermath, but he shuts our eyes to anything outside the realm of PG-13 in Brokedown Palace. Perhaps a grittier film would have resulted from an in-depth exploration of the current MPAA-devised ratings system, a prison all its own.

The movie picks up steam with the entrance of Bill Pullman, a lovably cranky and convincing actor--he's the only cast member who appears to be speaking his mind. I much prefer Hank's investigating to the girls' suffering, and wish that Alice and Dar's story was secondary to his own, that of a grumpy, married expatriate (his wife also practices law) with a reputation that proceeds him. We don't learn nearly enough about Hank, but the bits that we glean are satisfying.

Danes, so emotionally vibrant on the unceremoniously cancelled "My So Called Life", should stop playing toughies from the wrong side of the tracks (see--rather, don't see--The Mod Squad), because she tends to come off as disaffected and superficial when she's trying for hardened and impure. Her one great scene, a selfless plea for redemption, arrives too late in the picture, long after our potential sympathy for Alice has dried as apathy. Beckinsale is entirely unbelievable as Dar: this spunky Brit has no business doing American milquetoast. Perhaps she should have swapped roles with Danes. Or bailed out of the project altogether. To top things off, the female leads have no chemistry; there was reportedly offscreen indifference between Danes and Beckinsale, and it shows. Their lack of spark ultimately mutes the film's themes of devotion.

Kaplan's latest has been transferred to DVD in non-anamorphic, 2.35:1 letterboxed video with 5.1 Dolby Digital audio. The image quality is quite good but I've seen better from Fox. Colours are generally accurate and well saturated but they also occasionally smear. Moreover, while I'd never desribe the picture as soft, the finest details are tough to spot, especially in darker moments. Edge-enhancement is thankfully minimal, and compression artifacts are not in glaring evidence.

The DD mix is light on bass except during the techno interludes. Music merges with the surrounds periodically, although this is a stereo-centric soundtrack, with songs and effects mostly relegated to the front mains. Dialogue is suitably loud throughout. A Dolby Surround version is also included, as are cast bios, a trailer, and animated menus.-Bill Chambers