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JAILBAIT Send This Review to a Friend
Set primarily in the confines of a prison cell, “Jailbait” sometimes makes one feel as if serving the grim sentences of up to 25 years and the one for life that its cellmates face. The acting is effective, but the claustrophobia and the sexual and psychological violence involved make this a tough film to endure.
Randy, a sullen young man played unassumingly by Michael Pitt, has gotten a very raw deal. He has been sentenced to up to 25 years as a result of a three strikes law. He has committed low level crimes in contrast to the murder for which Jake, played by Stephen Adly Guirgis with an undercurrent of menace that is ready to explode, has already been imprisoned for life without possibility of parole. Jake cut his wife’s throat in reprisal for her infidelity. He views his crime as the only action he could have logically taken as a man.
The very talkative and probing Jake alternately sympathizes with and toys with his new cellmate, whose good looks make him a ready candidate for sexual abuse. Jake is bent on exercising his psychological and sexual power over the reticent, relatively quiet and pathetic Randy. We know the situation has to get ugly.
This is a film about subjugation, by the prison and justice systems, over individuals trapped in it, justly or unjustly, and of the power struggle that may build between inmates. The dynamic is one of despair and lack of hope. Writer-director Brett C. Leonard has made a taut, dramatic film, but one which a viewer might prefer not to experience. A Kindred Media Group release.
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