Brokedown Palace

Brokedown Palace is a 1999 American drama film directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman and Lim Kay Tong. It deals with two American friends imprisoned in Thailand for alleged drug smuggling. Its title is taken from a Grateful Dead song written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter from their 1970 album American Beauty. Plot After graduating from high school, best friends Alice Marano and Darlene Davis take a trip to Thailand, despite some reluctance from Darlene who tells her dad they are going to Hawaii. While there, they meet a captivating Australian man who calls himself Nick Parks; unknown to them, Nick is a drug smuggler. Darlene is particularly smitten with Nick and persuades Alice to take him up on his offer to treat them both to a side trip to Hong Kong. While boarding their flight at Don Mueang International Airport, the girls are detained by the Thai police and shocked to discover that one of their bags contains heroin, which they insist must have been planted by Nick. They are interrogated and Darlene signs a confession written in Thai, believing it to be a transcript of her statement confirming she is innocent. At their trial, they are sentenced to 33 years in prison. Alice and Darlene are advised to seek out Hank Greene, an expatriate American attorney living in Thailand. He tracks down another girl who had been used as an unwitting drug mule by a man named Skip K. Carn; Hank deduces that Carn and Parks are the same person, since each name is an anagram of the other. Hank discovers Parks tipped off the Thai police about Alice and Darlene as a distraction to make sure his other mules could get through.