Product: Jailbait (2000)
Rating: 5.0
Hilarious satire, wonderful wit, a must!
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 cliché 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...