Based on the true story of Henri Charriere, also known as Papillon, which is French for ‘butterfly’ (the character even sports a large tattoo of a butterfly. A petty criminal, Papillon is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in a French penal colony in ‘Guiane’ (French Guiana, South America). Papillon is determined to escape but attempt after attempt meets with difficulty, resulting in eventual recapture. He continues his attempts to escape despite incarcerations in solitary confinement as punishment.

Jared Cole and his girlfriend Sam Nicholson are a young couple living in the Caribbean. Jared is an unemployed diver whose dream is to find treasure in the Caribbean Sea and Sam works at a local resort as a shark handler. When Jared’s best friend Bryce Dunn, a selfish New York lawyer and his new girlfriend Amanda Collins arrive, the two couples spend a couple of days experiencing paradise. But, they discover an airplane on the sea floor that crashed during a hurricane and they find the cargo on-board the airplane is cocaine. Jared and Sam’s lives are in danger, when Bryce and Amanda make a deal with a dangerous drug lord who wants the cocaine. Jared’s rival, Treasure Hunter Derek Bates learns what they are doing and tries to negotiate the cocaine to raise money for a expedition where he intends to find a sunken boat with treasure. Jared, Sam, Bryce, and Amanda find themselves racing against time to find the shipwreck before somebody else does.