Brokedown Palace (1999) is a film with echoes of a number of other films, notably Midnight Express (1978), any number of women-in-prison films, and even Return to Paradise from 1998. The story is first told in flashback form as an American lawyer in Thailand, Yankee Hank, receives an audio tape in the mail and hears the story of two American girls, Alice and Darlene, recent high school graduates who came to Thailand for a vacation and who are now in prison, sentenced to 33 years for trying to smuggle drugs. They are innocent, having been duped by an Australian named Nick Parks.
Hank learns that Alice and Darlene have been best friends since childhood and decided to take a trip to Thailand to celebrate high school graduation. They are a bit foolish and presume that they are immune from most troubles because they are Americans, as if that would protect them in a foreign country. They have taken this trip without telling their parents where they are going, and one of the reasons for the trip is to get away from parents and even laws, as if the latter were possible. They like Bangkok but not their $6 a night room, so they engage in a number of foolish escapades, such as trying to swim in the pool at a luxury hotel. They have trouble when it is time to pay for their drinks, and this is when they meet Nick Parks, who helps them out. They see him as a charming man of the world, making it easier for him to dupe them when he talks them into taking a trip to Hong Kong for the weekend. They never get that far, though, since they are stopped at the airport and arrested for smuggling drugs. No one believes that they are innocent and that someone named Nick is the guilty party.
The girls still have foolish ideas about their position and are easily gulled once more by the police and by their assigned lawyers. The police get one of them to sign a confession. The lawyers both advise that they plead guilty in hope that the judge wi...