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.
Darlene learns that Alice was with Nick the day of the trip to Hong Kong and believes that she agreed to help smuggle the heroin. She tells Alice she has ruined her life; Darlene’s dad also blames Alice since she was always causing trouble as a young child. As time goes by, Darlene begins to struggle with the violence and squalor of prison. When she becomes ill after a cockroach gets in her ear, Alice pays a guard to arrange for both girls to escape, but they are caught and later served extended sentences as a result.
Warned that Parks has influential friends in the Thai government, Hank arranges a deal with a corrupt prosecutor to secure a pardon for the girls if they recant their claim about his involvement and take full responsibility for smuggling the drugs. The girls agree, but the prosecutor double-crosses them. Knowing Darlene will not survive in prison, Alice tearfully takes the blame and begs the King of Thailand to allow her to serve both sentences in exchange for letting Darlene go. The deal is accepted and Darlene is released. She promises to continue working with Hank to try to free Alice.
In a voiceover, which is a tape recording to Hank, Alice tells him not many people will understand why she made her decision to take the blame, but says it was the right thing to do.
==Cast==
* Claire Danes as Alice Marano
* Kate Beckinsale as Darlene Davis
* Bill Pullman as Hank Greene
* Lou Diamond Phillips as Roy Knox
* Jacqueline Kim as Yon Greene
* Daniel Lapaine as Nick Parks
* Tom Amandes as Doug Davis
* Aimee Graham as Beth Ann Gardener
* John Doe as Bill Marano
* Lori Lethin as Lori Davis
* Lim Kay Tong as Chief Detective Jagkrit
* Amanda de Cadenet as English prisoner
* Paul Walker as Jason
* Victor Neri as bellhop
* Ronnie Lazaro as security
Category:1999 films
Category:20th Century Fox films
Category:Regency Enterprises films
Category:Rated PG-13
Category:2:35:1 Aspect Ratio Films