Jailbait

I saw this at TriBeCa Film Festival, and I loved it. Even though there is only one brief moment of violence in the movie, I found myself breathless and tense through out the entire film. All of the harassment was insinuated. The degradation was hurtful and apparent. The movie was only the two cell mates for the majority of the film, and it was just so...you just have to see it. It is heart breaking and leaves you helpless and angry and sympathetic. The scene between Randy and his mother...ugh. I don't know, there's not much you can say about the film with out seeing it...it is an emotional ride more than anything else...a lot of insinuation, a lot of fantastic wordless acting...I hope to god it's released for all to see.

This movie is extremely good, with pitch-perfect performances by Stephen Adly Guirgis and Michael Pitt. I mean, this ain't Christmas WITH THE KRANKS, and it can be difficult to watch at times, but only because the writing and directing are so intelligent and emotionally jarring that you sort of feel behind the same bars as the characters are stuck behind. It's a visceral experience, and as I was watching it, I noted how rare that is in cinema these days. Brett C. Leonard never delves into melodrama, as a writer AND director. He lets his actors do the work but with excellent cinematography in a small space, and the mental/physical domination unfolds in unexpected ways. I hope this film gets the recognition it deserves!

I just recently saw this fil at the Woodstock Film Festival and found it .... amazing.

Michael Pitt and Stephen Adly-Guirgis were incredibly perfect for these roles. It was the first time that I had seen either actor and the cinematography made you feel claustrophobic and trapped as a prison cell. I think it really hit home about the prison system and how young men are raped and mentally abused by cellmates. It should send a message to the judicial system to monitor prisoners more and keep "chickens" from the hawks. Extremely provoking and sad. One of the best films of 2004.

`When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes' from one of Shakespeare's sonnets was used in 1967 (before Stonewall) as the title of a play about men in prison and the sexual games that were played there.

Jailbait covers much the same territory and it would appear (if this movie is taken at face value) that some parts of society haven't moved ahead at all.

In this prison drama, essentially a two-man play, we see the interaction between the hardened lifer Jake and the much younger, much more frail Randy (played by Michael Pitt)

The first scene with the two men is deceptively mild but towards the end of that scene we see that there is menace just below the surface of Jake's behavior. From the `wounded doe' look in Randy's eyes at the beginning of the second scene we can begin to see that something is wrong and while what it is seems pretty obvious (given that it's a prison movie) we are not really certain for some time

Unfortunately the movie doesn't progress much from there. Like the men, we seemed sentenced to remain in the same place for much longer than we'd choose to.

This movie is worth seeing as a character study and there are some memorable bits but it seemed to cover no new ground nor present any new perspectives over the 30 year old Fortune and Men's Eyes (albeit this one showed that it had a much better budget and was by far more polished)

I was ultimately left unfulfilled and wondering why this movie had been made.

I started watching this movie with no pre-conceived notions. (I only decided to see it based on the presence of Michael Pitt, who has proved himself to be a very capable young actor, and that it was produced by the same producer as L.I.E. I had heard nothing about it.)I wish I had read a review before hand and saved myself some time and money. (Though the review I read here for it wouldn't have stopped me from seeing the film. They seemed to think simplicity means "art".) The acting was surprisingly good. That I am willing to say. If you want an acting class on how to react silently on film, Pitt's performance is sublime. Sadly, those moments do not save this clunker of a movie.

Some times you see a movie that was based on a play and you can feel the story not fitting the medium of film. This was a very similar experience to that. It was like watching a badly lit stage play with close ups. You are robbed of the joy of going to see a play while also being robbed of the pleasures of film. They are two completely different mediums and this movie fit neither one.

If it was play at a local theater, I would recommend it solely based on the mental exercise that would accompany the play on the ride home. But as a film, I must say this movie left me feeling flat. The camera felt intrusive. The pace felt forced. The violence seemed tame and unreal. Even the dialouge seemed as if it were written by someone who had never seen the inside of a prison. (Or if they had, it was in 1957.)The actors clearly did the best they could. They had to take this job for the chance to do good work and not for money, but sadly the direction and script didn't allow them to make a movie you don't forget about ten minutes before the credits even start.