Drugged OUT!

by EMMA SCIANTARELLI

FROM ISSUE # 161 (May 2009) | IN THIS ISSUE
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Hot guys driving pimped out cars might be the overall premise of Fast & Furious 4, but the crux of its actual storyline is trafficking drugs across international borders. While the movie may be an unrealistic rendition of the inside operations of one of the world's largest businesses, many movies over the years have dissected the topic and put forth at least somewhat plausible storylines. WAVE, this month, chose a few of the most notable drug themed movies for you to watch.

Brokedown Palace
Based on a true story of two British tourists who wind up in a Thai prison for trafficking drugs to Hong Kong, Brokedown Palace has Kate Beckinsale and Claire Danes who play best friends with polar different personalities. Both girls get romantically entangled with the same dashing Australian man, whose good looks dupe one or both of the girls into making an irrevocable mistake of a lifetime. The two end up with life sentences within the confines of an intensely harsh, unforgiving Thai prison. The movie shows how the girls attempt to get free despite all of the odds and the ending is one of cinema's all time most beautiful depictions of redemption, grace and love. 

Maria Full of Grace
A common method for transporting cocaine between Colombia into America is via the stomach of young, desperate Colombian women. After swallowing around 50 lethal latex tablets filled with the drug, the women board a plane. Maria Full of Grace follows one girl as she involves herself with Colombian drug traffickers in order to make a new life for herself in America. The movie is horrifyingly real and has an almost docu-drama feel to it. If you want to learn more about the nitty-gritty realities of how cocaine leaves Colombia and finds its way in other parts of the world, this is a movie that can entertain you, while giving a little bit of actual information.

Trainspotting
More than a decade before director, Danny Boyle made the renowned Slumdog Millionaire, he made another movie that quickly became an international sensation. More a movie about the drug scene in the UK, the movie shifts its focus from life as a user to the business side of things when ex-user, Renton , turns his old habit into an entrepreneurial endeavor at the urging of an old pal. Trainspotting is one of, if not the most notable movie about drugs of all time.  

Traffic
Even in so-called 'developed' countries, the underworld and governments have much more interdependent relationships than that meets the eye.  Set in the height of America's infamous 'War on Drugs', Traffic dissects the liaison between big time Mexican drug traffickers and high ranking politicians. Streamlining the stories of individuals from different economic and societal spheres in Mexico and the United States, Traffic unravels the mystery of hypocrisy, corruption, addiction and greed.