User Reviews

Jailbreakers (1994)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Who would have ever thought that the director of THE EXORCIST and the co-writer of HALLOWEEN could come up with something this poor? High school cheerleader Angel (Shannen Doherty) has a great life in front of her but she ends up falling for Tony (Antonio Sabato, Jr.), a rebel lowlife who slowly but surely brings her down to his level and before long the two are trying to evade the police. This was another one of those in-name-only remakes of the older AIP flick. This one here has Debra Hill co-writing the screenplay as well as producing and we've got William Friedkin directing but you really wouldn't know it just by watching this film. Friedkin's direction can not be spotted as it appears he was either very bored with this production and didn't care about it or perhaps we could give him the benefit of the doubt and say he wanted to pay homage to all those bad "C" movies from AIP. If his goal was to make a bad movie just like people would have seen back in the 1950s then I guess you can call this a success. The biggest problem is that there's simply no energy in the film and even at just 76-minutes the thing feels way too long. Another problem is the screenplay, which just seems to jump around in time as there's really no character development and there are so many things that just seem to happen for no reason. Both Doherty and Sabato, Jr. actually do decent jobs with their roles and there's even a young Adrien Brody playing one of the sidekicks. Adrienne Barbeau plays the girl's mother but she's pretty much wasted and spends most of the film just standing around. JAILBREAKERS really doesn't have much going for it so only those who need to see all the films in the series should bother with it.

Quite simply, this movie fails on all levels. I got the feeling that about every 2nd scene was cut out of this movie...that's how jarring it could be. I can't imagine how incoherent (or idiotic) this movie would appear to someone who sees it "edited for TV". The acting is weak, particularly by the supporting cast, and the script isn't terribly interesting either.

Don't waste your time with this mess.

Movie was awful, script was weak & main characters need some brush up to save this film. The plot was too far fetched & not believeable. As an example, Tony steals a car from a person's driveway directly across from Shannon's house. The next scene, Tony is picking up Shannon with the stolen car ... did anyone report the car stolen or did Tony think no one would notice a showroom 1957 convertible?

I found this episode to be extremely well executed, which is expected since William Friedkin is at the helm. I saw it a while ago on television and i hated it, but now just watched it again on netflix and it's a well made little Friedkin film such as many of other episodes he's done for television (Twilight Zone, Tales from the Cript, and CSI). The film was well photographed, edited, acted and directed. It does carry his theme of the thin line between good and evil.

I would say it's a great teenage film. I can't believe Adrian Brodi was in this film as a teenager who went on to have a great career in films and winning an Oscar. Shannen Doherty...well I'm not sure what happened to her. William Friedkin went on to make some decent films (Rules of Engagement, The Hunted, Bug, Killer Joe), but Jade, well that's a different story.

This is a film which targets teenagers. It has a young cast and its plot is not that important. But it tackles the story of a young beautiful and gorgeous girl who sets young men up in order to get the attention she needs and it turns out to be that she's the victim. I see the scenario is not a big deal. However it entertains teens. I was attracted to sean whalen, shannen doherty and adrian brody who was by then an ordinary actor not the star who has emerged from the pianist. I guess that's the view of a large number of people. I like the leather clad characters. But the way the movie ends is kinda trivial.