In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

i rented " brokedown palace " last night blind , having heard nothing about it beforehand , and i enjoyed it immensely despite some flaws .
for anyone wishing to have the same experience i would suggest reserving judgement of the movie until viewing it in its entirety .
that is no easy task .
superficially , it bears an unfortunate ( and not necessarily unintended ) resemblance to several other movies , notably " return to paradise " and " midnight express .
" as a result nearly every review of " brokedown palace " i subsequently read became hopelessly entangled in making the obvious comparisons .
the consequence was nearly universal condemnation , which is a shame as
this is a fine film .
for those who have yet to view the movie , let me say that it is not an attempt to portray the nightmarish reality of the third world criminal justice system ( as was " midnight express " ) nor completely the moral dilemma and examination of the meaning of friendship and humanity that was the heart of " return to paradise .
" in my view , if this film is to be compared to any other source it would have to be joseph conrad 's acclaimed novel , " lord jim .
"
problematically , the basic storyline seems more than familiar : two american teenage girls on vacation are sentenced to spend most of their lives in a thai prison for drug smuggling in an obvious set - up involving a suave con - man , a shadowy criminal conspiracy and a corrupt third world " justice " system .
the girls are alice ( claire danes ) and darlene ( kate beckinsale ) .
they 're life - long buddies who planned a high - school graduation trip to hawaii , and then secretly changed their destination to the more exotic thailand without telling their parents .
once there , they find a $ 6 hotel and go sight - seeing , which includes sneaking into a luxury hotel to sip expensive drinks poolside .
they get caught trying to charge the bill to the wrong room , a minor transgression which will later come back to haunt them , but they are saved from hotel security by a charming , friendly australian , nick ( daniel lapaine ) , who takes care of the bill with a more polished execution of the girl 's scam .
he then proceeds to separate the girls and make smooth moves , first toward alice , then toward darlene .
by now alarm bells are going off among viewers .
the ever - present nick is too slick and his stories do n't add up ( to us ) --the girls , of course , are too naive to notice .
long before it happens , we 're anticipating the inevitable disappearance of the fast - talking smuggler and the arrest of our teenaged sitting - ducks at the airport en route to hong kong caught holding the bag ( literally ) containing heroin .
just as predictably , the thai police and courts do their part in meting out injustice and our trusting tourists are prison - bound for a long stretch .
left unanswered is the red herring issue of whether one or the other of the girls was a willing accomplice .
for those in need of a ready answer , might i suggest closer scrutiny of the bell hop at the girl 's fleabag hotel .
as one door after another to their comfortable former life is closed , the girls and their families turn in desperation to the noiresque expatriate lawyer / fixer " yankee hank " ( bill pullam ) and his thai - born partner - wife .
a recurring element of the movie is the tension between appearance and reality as expressed in one of the film 's tag lines , " who do you trust ? , " and hank is no exception although seasoned movie- goers and those familiar with pullman 's oeuvre will find few surprises .
much of the remainder of the movie is a smorgasbord of intriguing themes incompletely explored in short - hand fashion .
lou diamond phillips , for instance , plays a delightfully sinister and callous dea agent who , while appearing to be casually accommodating to hank , withholds vital information at crucial moments .
is he part of a wider conspiracy ? with an inherently powerful , if somewhat tired premise , the film offers by parts a riveting courtroom drama , a prison story , and a potential character study of american teens , their relationship , and what constitutes friendship between them .
the result is reasonably engaging and suspenseful , with the girls ' interaction , hank 's investigation , and the various trials and hearings , offering hope for their release , delivering tension -- as does the foredoomed possibility of their escape .
if " brokedown palace " has a major flaw , it is its creators ' tendency , like time - constrained tourists , to take frequent side trips down fascinating alleys only to reverse direction half - way down and return to the story 's main avenue .
and , if that were all there was to " brokedown palace , " it would n't be a very good movie .
but i believe the writers and director were after bigger game and , in this , they succeeded .
for the main theme of the movie , like the proffered name of its location , is freedom -- in all its permutations .
ultimately , the other sub - themes may be considered window dressing .
young and pretty , alice ( danes ) is an old soul ; a wild , streetwise teenager with a thirst for freedom and adventure .
presented as a perfect blend of yin and yang , dark and light , is her cautious best friend , darlene ( beckinsale ) .
clear - eyed and straightforward , alice is more complex than her friend .
she comes from a poorer background , has a reputation for getting into trouble and has lost the trust of everyone ( including her own father ) .
whereas darlene 's life is " on - track , " aimed at college , marriage , kids , a career , a suburban home , middle age and " fulfillment , " alice 's is uncertain , unfocused , and yearning .
one poignant scene in the film shows darlene shouting across an open moat to visitors -- friends and relatives from home , whose lives continue while hers is in limbo .
tellingly , alice is present but not included .
just as revealing of their different personalities , when alice and dar first come to thailand , the openness and delight on alice 's face does n't read as simple naivet ?
; the way she stands up and stretches as she and her friend ride along in a small boat , reaching toward the sun , she really is drinking in what she believes to be freedom , while " dar " remains seated in the shade .
"
brokedown palace " begins with an admission by alice of her guilt in a tape recording sent to hank .
however unintentional , it 's all alice 's fault .
she 's responsible for persuading her friend to lie to her parents , to sneak away from the safety of hawaii to the perils of thailand , to try the petty scam which places them in the clutches of the evil nick .
( in case one misses this point in the inevitable confusion of a film 's beginning , darlene obligingly reminds alice of her culpability in prison . )
dar , of course , is the willing dupe which , in her view , confers innocence .
never mind that it was her coercion of a reluctant alice to accompany her to hong kong which placed them in police custody in the first place or that her naive confession sealed their fate .
dar is innocent .
it does n't matter .
alice is the subject of this movie .
she and her journey toward personal freedom .
along the way we are treated to an unsympathetic portrait of the shallow american culture which created these girls with their half - baked sensibilities and materialistic goals .
in the end , that culture , like its representatives , " yankee " hank and dar 's father ( a " man who knows how to grease the wheels " ) , proves as impotent as its government in the face of the girl 's tragedy .
thailand 's culture , contrary to most opinion , comes off much better by comparison .
it amazes me that reviewers argued this point at both extremes .
i believe the filmmaker 's view was that thai culture is vastly different from the american but not necessarily inferior .
the thai ( with the sole exceptions of a corrupt official and a spiteful prison spy ) were uniformly consistent in their behavior and true to their principles .
the girls were shown to be treated no better but certainly no worse than the native - born .
their prison ( in stark contrast to the probable reality ) was no hellhole , being relatively clean and sunlit .
the prison authorities demanded good hygiene , provided medical care when needed , and " hard manual labor " consisted of picking grass !
the thai guards were authoritarian ( what else ? )
but certainly not routinely sadistic .
as for the thai justice system , the reasoning of the thai judges , during both an appeal hearing and in the film 's penultimate scene was devastating in its logic and morality .
' freedom ' has many faces and " brokedown palace " explores many of them .
in the extreme , we have freedom of the body and freedom of the spirit .
some settle for the former alone while others remain imprisoned with an entire nation to roam without the latter .
but freedom seldom comes without a price .
which is why the movie 's other tag lines are : " what is your dream ?
" and " how far would you go ?
"
i believe i could make a good case for the interpretation that the person who attains freedom , incarcerated or not , by film 's end is alice .
she finds redemption and salvation through the acceptance of personal responsibility .
i think the light bathing only her figure among the assembled prisoners in the final scene visually signals that fact .
kate beckinsale 's character might more properly be likened to the " released " temple bird referred to twice during the film , " trained to fly back to its cage .
" as the thai magistrate observed in the film 's climactic scene , the issue was always one of " character ; " and the jamaican prisoner made it clear that " freedom " is achieved within oneself . if one thinks back over the movie , which character was transformed by their experiences ?
increasingly , the cinema landscape seems to have become littered with endless permutations of ' kung fu woman'--female characters virtually indistinguishable from male action figures .
here , at last , is the story of a modern heroine .
in reading the many user 's comments , i was struck by what seems an unusual phenomenon : whether or not a person liked the movie ,
almost everyone praised the actors .
think about that .
when was the last time you came away from a motion picture possibly hating it , but raving about all the performances in it ?
do yourself a favor : rent " brokedown palace " and watch it with a open mind .
there 's more there than meets the eye .
P

plot summary : the year is 2024 .
the ozone layer has long since gone and the earth is now protected from radiation by a shield invented by connor mccleod .
the shield , although saving lives , has made the atmosphere hot and humid .
connor is a mortal and a tired old man who has given up hope .
on returning from the opera one night connor is accosted by the leader of a " terrorist " organisation .
they have tried to find out what the company that now runs the shield unit are covering up .
connor is then attacked by two assassins sent by katana from the planet zeist ( like zeit -- get it ? ) .
they fail and connor becomes immortal again by chopping their heads off .
he then brings ramirez back to life in glencoe in scotland .
both ramirez and connor are rebel leaders back on zeist and have been sent to earth as punishment .
connor now has the option to return being the last one but opts to stay with his new found immortality and fight to find out about the company and the shield .
katana meanwhile , fearing connor would return , sets out himself to kill the highlander .
if you have never seen it . being a fan of highlander and mr .
connery , i was in the cinema as soon as i could to see highlander ii :
the quickening .
i wish it had been quicker .
i feel whatever else you can say about a film ( bad script bad music , etc . ) if you sit just plain bored through most of it then nothing much else needs to be said .
the film was short but in my opinion only twelve minutes or so
( the time mr .
connery is on the screen for ) is worth watching .
the plot sounds a little ridiculous but i was willing to give it a chance .
maybe they could pull it off .
instead , i find that the characters have completely changed from those in the first film .
it 's as if they are different people with the same names .
witness connor jumping into bed with the leader of the resistance -- where is the attitude of " who wants to live forever , when love must die " gone to ?
the love sub - plot
* must * have had footage cut out .
the highlander and ramirez both seemed aware of powers they had never mentioned before .
putting our heroes in deadly situations and then having them walk away because of some new power is very annoying .
i still want to know why connor 's coat becomes flame proof when he is immortal !
we are not given enough time on zeist to believe in it , nor are we told why advanced aliens still use swords to kill .
why not dynamite or laser saws or just plain bullets followed by a quick chop to the neck ?
i know the head needs to come off
but you could at least immobilise your opponent with laser rifles first .
to be fair one assassin tried this
but he must be the world 's worst shot .
meanwhile connor develops luke - skywalker - like powers of laser beam deflection .
as for " bad guys , " we see a rebellion on zeist , crushed easier than a grape and then the rest of the plot depends on katana being obsessed with killing mccleod in case he returns to zeist .
two assassins are sent , presumably they are meant to be good at killing but an aged connor kills them both with no problems .
no more assassins are sent .
katana , supposedly a very powerful man goes himself to kill connor .
has he no more assassins ?
has he no better ?
why was the rebellion crushed so easily then ?
michael ironside is totally unconvincing
( bring back the kurgan ) .
he seems like a cartoon character and really is n't that evil , just stupid and violent .
we see the hollywood trick of the chief nasty threatening a child again and killing lots of innocents .
yet he still seems like no threat -- perhaps because he seems too stupid to threaten connor , or maybe because his two best assassins would n't have been amiss with larry , curly and mo .
so much for plot and characters .
the music is atrocious .
it is at best intrusive and at worst annoying . bring back queen .
there was an audible sigh ( of relief ? )
when connor played a queen track in a juke box .
i believe this at least is to be corrected for the american release .
the acting is at best flat , except for mr .
connery .
lambert is uninteresting and when he delivered " there can be only one " this time around it
just made me wish there had only been one -- highlander .
michael ironside is unconvincing
; sorry , michael , i usually like you and everyone else was incredibly forgetable .
so why 2/10 ?
visually the film is interesting at all times .
it has a blade runner feel to it and some of the special effects are quite stunning .
add to this an irrepressible sean connery who smiles throughout the whole film -- or is he smirking to himself ?
his lines and delivery might make the film worthwhile
had it not been so obvious that he can not take the whole thing seriously at all
but hey
--
*
i 'd * have done it for 12 million .
oh , and i agree with a previous reviewer
, she * does * look like sharon stone but i believe it is her first film .
incidentally there is a line producer credited and i hear rumours of highlander iii : the wizard .
N

today , war became a reality to me after seeing a screening of saving priivate ryan .
steve spielberg goes beyond reality with his latest production .
the audience is tossed about the theatre witnessing the horror of war .
please keep the kids home as the r rating is for reality .
tom hanks is stunning
as capt john miller , set out in france during ww ii to rescue and return home a soldier , private ryan ( matt damon ) who lost three brothers in the war .
spielberg at time takes us inside the heads of these individuals as they face death during the horrific battle scenes .
private ryan is not for everyone , but i felt the time was right for a movie like this to be made .
the movie reminds us of the sacrifices made by our ww ii fighting men and women .
we must not ever forget them as many gave the ultimate sacrifice , their lives so that we may live in freedom today .
for this i thank them and for steve spielberg for making a movie that i will never forget .
the academy will not forget tom hanks come april 1999 , as
another well deserved oscar
with be in tom 's posession .

P