JAILBAIT is one of those self aware teenie-bopper flicks which I later found out had it's premiere on MTV. It thinks it a comedy; to bad it isn't funny. It thinks it's camp; to bad it's disjointed and stupid. You know, the nicest thing I can say about this film is that it's in focus.

It stars Kevin Mundy (3000 Miles to Grace Land) as Jim Darling, the most popular senior in his high school. He has a girlfriend named Amber (Regan Pasternak) who won't give him sexual gratification. So he finds it in Gynger, (Alica Purrot) a trailer trash sexpot who's a sophomore. All hell breaks loose when Gynger becomes pregnant, Jim is charged with statutory rape, an Amber is hurt but for some reason is oblivious to how much of an idiot Jim is.

There's not one smart person in this film. Everyone is a dolt, there's no voice of reason, and so about 10 minutes in you've lost all interest. Except the story thinks this is funny, so it throws in zingers left and right, not one of which is funny.

Fortunately the film is short, barely 80 minutes, but early on there are two sequences thrown in because I think someone felt it necessary to stretch the running time. The first scene is of Gynger lying there in her underwear staring at a photo. The next is a four minute Music video, with a bunch of unidentifiable girls (possibly some failed band) singing and a take-off of Britney Spears `Hit Me Baby One More Time.'

The film is also quite sexually explicit for the first 4 or 5 minutes. Then for some reason it's all reigned in. This is probably best explained by its inclusion as an original movie from MTV. I can honestly say this film is the WORST MTV film ever, even worse than JOE'S APARTMENT.

Director Allan Moyle should be ashamed of this film. Especially since some of his other work is far better (Pump Up The Volume and The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag are great). I'll give him this one as a lapse in judgment after that I don't know. I'd rather be in jail than sit through JAILBAIT again.


Hilarious satire, wonderful wit, a must!   February 4, 2002
Breck Stewart (San Francisco, CA USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Let me just say that I absolutely LOVED this movie. And let me also say that have left my teen years some 20 years ago. I am 33 and usually hate to have to suffer through any teen-oriented comedy like "American Pie" I saw recently which I found hopelessly unfunny, boring and stupid. And most of the time, I don't even bother to try watching any other recent films dealing with young people's awakening about sex issues.

This said, I happened to catch "Jailbait" on cable recently and was instantly sucked into the deeply effective editing and camera work involved, along with the very satirical directing and performances. Even though the subject of statuary rape is a serious one, here it is treated in such a way that there is an awareness of the fact that this is high camp cinema and nothing depicted should be treated seriously.

I was particularly impressed with the two young leads which have been brilliantly directed into delivering performances that are in total harmony with the whole tone of the movie. This is a movie making fun of the whole "teen-movies phenomenon" all the while being totally aware of the fact that it is itself a "teen movie" but destined towards a more mature audience.

Many potentially offensive subjects here treated as jokes but the director was brilliant enough to let us the audience see that this is a movie who doesn't take itself seriously. Everything is so farfetched (with often hilarious results) that it tells us that the filmmaker expected nothing else than entertaining its audience with outrageous but finely tuned acting parodies and well-crafted camera work.

I have seen many teen movies such as "Scary Movie" I and II, "American Pie" I and II and none of them compares to the wit and cleverness "Jailbait" displays. A satire is probably the most difficult thing to achieve in cinema. It has to contain a balance between outrageous stunts and self awareness. Most teen movies pile up the gross factor, hoping to make audiences laugh. But here, even though no joke cliche is left unturned, it is done in a constant parody mode which I truly enjoyed.

I don't know why the reviews here were so negative regarding this little jem. Perhaps as I said before, this is probably a movie adult would enjoy more than teenagers. I for one, who is a very harsh critic concerning movies, found this one able to do what most films can't: entertain the hell out of me...