Rating of
2.5/4
The movie was ok, could have been a lot better
TheWolf - wrote on 08/03/07
Two high school girls trick their parents into thinking they are going to Hawaii, but they instead go to Thailand, where they meet up with this charming Aussie stranger who possibly gets them pinched at an airport with heroin in their bags. The rest of the movie involves the girls' plight in the harsh Thai prison, with Bill Pullman's character trying to get them out based on very little evidence of their innocence.
Claire Danes character is the "bad girl" in the relationship, and this is key because the director wants to introduce tension as to whether Alice (Danes) was involved in the drug smuggling or not, because the film deals with issues of personal guilt and contrasts this with legal guilt. Alice needs to find someone to believe in her, since her parents do not, and this comes in the form of Bill Pullman's character, and this is all Alice needs, in order to do something remarkable and poignant in this film about personal redemption.
Over all the movie was ok, it wasn't really what I thought it could have been, I guess I really don't follow Claire Danes as a great actress. A lot of people have been following her since her days on "My So Called Life" but honestly I think she really portrays most of her characters rather weakly. The film could have been a lot better with someone else in the role.
