Review: When best pals Alice (Claire Danes) and Darlene (Kate Beckinsale) panic over a single cockroach crawling through their Bangkok hotel room, you just know that "Brokedown Palace" is heading toward a scene with a whole lot of bugs. It's that kind of movie--so predictable that you keep waiting for the next inevitable moment.

Will that hunky blond Australian dude (Daniel Lapaine) whom they meet on their vacation prove too good to be true? Will jealousy blossom between the friends? Will Thai police discover a couple of kilos of heroin in their luggage? Will the girls wind up locked away for an outrageous number of years in a nasty-stinky Third World jail?

Yep, yep, yep and yep. As you tick off plot points, you may start to wonder what audience the filmmakers thought they were serving. What untapped demographic is out there aching to watch talented young actresses choke down rotting soup and sweat in a maximum-security pit? Unbearably high-minded, the movie doesn't even have the B-movie juice of an old babes-behind-bars melodrama.

The flick's main spark comes from Bill Pullman, redeeming his comatose performance in "Lake Placid." He plays "Yankee Hank," an ambulance-chasing lawyer who takes on the girls' case, for a price. (His ingratiating, oily performance is a reminder of what a good sleazeball he makes, as in "The Last Seduction.") Lou Diamond Phillips also has some nice scenes as a sardonic U.S. drug agent very well-versed in Bangkok's shadier political alliances.

Director Jonathan Kaplan, with "The Accused" and "Love Field" on his resume, continues his streak of unbalanced movies distinguished by their lead actresses' performances. Brit Beckinsale makes a convincing American and turns in strong work. But the showier role goes to Danes, as the hothead of the pair. David Arata's script makes a big deal over the question of Alice's innocence--did she or didn't she know about the drugs in her bag? But when the girls are facing four decades of jail time, that seems a trivial point of debate to hang a movie on.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service