This film begins with a middle-aged woman named "Sandra Chase" (Barbara Hershey) being convinced by her adult daughter "Tammi Chase" (Rachael Leigh Cook) to take a vacation to Ecuador with her male companion "Nick Sakeris" (Vincent Irizarry). Having never been overseas, Sandra eventually acquiesces to her boyfriend, and they fly to Ecuador. Unfortunately, as they prepare to board their return flight, two bags of cocaine are found in Sandra's luggage and the two of them are imprisoned pending a trial for drug trafficking. The problem, however, is that the court system is quite slow in Ecuador and as a result Sandra soon finds herself alone in a foreign prison without any idea on whether she will ever be able to resume the life she once knew. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that whenever I see the words "based on a true story" applied to any American movie, I immediately begin to suspect that some key facts have been embellished out-of-proportion to the actual case at hand. It's what Hollywood does. That said, I have always tried to take everything with a grain of salt when watching movies of this sort. But that's just me. Even so, I still found the overall story to be quite riveting, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.
