Jawbreaker (1999)

Jawbreaker gave me the feeling of high school comedy meeting a exploitation b-movie, kinda like Mean Girls meets Death proof, or Heathers meets Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! I wasn't entirely wrong, even though I don't think I can compare Jawbreaker with either Death Proof of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Heathers is such a cult movie on its own, it's easy to compare Jawbreaker with it. Both involve bitchy high school girls, murder and dark humour.I find myself loving these kind of movies with black humour. They are stupid, absolutely, but for some reason they are absolutely hilarious. You just know people are going to hate the movie, and it's just part of the fun. The story is horrible yet so absurd it's almost funny. Of course the kidnapping gone wrong seems highly unlikely, yet it also feels plausible. I feel like I should be telling my friends not to try to kidnap me for my birthday. The characters aren't written so well, but they are fun. They are the typical archetypes of high school movies. Rose McGowan plays the most devious high school bitch I've ever seen in a film, and Rebecca Gayheart, Julie Benz and Judy Greer all pose as different kind of characters of the same type. I would've loved to see more of some characters, especially Vera Cruz portrayed by Pam Grier. When I saw her, I thought her part was going to be bigger. I was disappointed.The dialogue in Jawbreaker was just as good as in Heathers. It isn't actually realistic, because the language is extremely colourful, and no one would say several lines from this movie out loud because it wouldn't sound good in any context. But it works in a movie. There are so many details in this movie I love, but one thing I have to mention is the effects when the scene changes. Like the whole movie, they are stupid, but that's part of Jawbreaker's charm.If I had to recommend few songs from the soundtrack of Jawbreaker, I'd say Bad Word For A Good Thing by The Friggs and (Let the) Good Times Roll by The Cars. All the songs were well chosen and they worked. And some of the songs (especially the two mentioned) are like they could be straight from my music library. I love it when this happens while watching a movie.Jawbreaker is stupid but in a funny way. It's obviously dark, so if you have the tendency to get angry at the jokes being too dark for you to enjoy them, then don't bother. I love this film and I want more!Am I horrible if I wanted this to be more violent?

Jawbreaker is a teen movie about image, deceit, manipulation, and murder.The good. Very interesting story and characters. Nice intrigue. Well done evil plan. A teen flick with it's own dark-glamour style.The actors. Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart, Julie Benz, and Judy Greer are great. I have to mention though, that Ethan Erickson is hilarious in a straight face kind of way as the dumb jock.The bad. A bit over-glamorous, but it fits the flick. Serves us some clichés.The ugly. Zack is too simple a character.The result. A nice teen movie that can be watched by anybody considering the seriousness of the subject.

I only watched this because of Rose McGowan (Grindhouse). I guess if i watched Charmed, I would know her, but Death Proof was my introduction. I thought she was so cool, and she was in this film also. It may have been a campy film about high school, but she was just so interesting.I remember Carole Kane from "Taxi" - boy, does that date me! I always like to see her pop up and she did a great job in this film also.Pam Grier played a police detective and I always like seeing her. I'll be checking her out next in Bones.It's a forgettable film, but it was funny and worth watching just to see some of the cast.

Three bitchy-teen queens who are the most popular students at school, lives change when they play a prank on a friend. It's a tradition to kidnap them each other on their birthday, but something goes horribly wrong when one of them puts a jawbreaker in her mouth and taped it and stuck her in the trunk. After getting to their destination they open the truck to discover she had chocked on a jawbreaker. Now they make this secret and try to forget, by planning out something to get them off the trail, so the police can't suspect them. But one of them falls out of the group's favour because she felt they should've went to the cops.Err; High School was such a joy, wasn't it? Actually, what I am saying, I didn't go through this, or even come across any type of people like this during high school. But then again this is set in an American high compared to something in Australia. A different type of social politics, I guess. Anyhow, I read that the flick took four weeks to shoot and originally the director intended the film to be a horror film, but it went into black comedy territory instead. To say it was a good one would be a bit of a stretch. Because it wasn't that funny, nor particularly compelling. I love my black comedies, but this failed miserably after the somewhat promising opening. For me, it was just another superficial teen flick that's masquerading as an edgy black comedy. It was more glossy, and sweet on the outside, but the context of this one-idea film was plain sour. Trashy indeed, but the whole irony just didn't come off. Yeah, its hardly awful to say the least, but the intended parody gimmick just didn't succeed, by working it into the usual formula, misplaced sentiment and high school clichés. Overall, the plot is just unconvincing and tame in the way it plays out. And for the climax, well actually it was better than expected. What went by the wayside were the smug characters, sure they're mockery performances… I hope so, but they were hard to connect with, even the ones with good intentions. Nothing interesting really about these characters that's for sure. Although, the performances run cold and hot. A bubbling Rose McGowan stood out as the ice queen of the group, plus there are some small roles from the likes of Carol Kane, PJ Soles, William Katt and Pam Grier as a tough police detective. Onto the cold, well Rebecca Gayheart as one of the leads and was rather uneventful. The dialogue rather snappy material, but other times it bordered on glamorous drivel. Indeed, it was mocking the way those stuck up snobs acted, but at times I was hoping for some more wit, or inventive humour instead. It's been done to death before. Since I'm on the negatives, uh how uncool was that editing? What was the deal with those ridiculous cartoon sound effects, especially during the editing sequences? Now what was good was that of the rocking soundtrack that pumped out some great tunes. Somehow I found it more spiritless even with it sugar, glossy approach. Now if only we could've seen the horror take that it was first going to be, gee I wonder what we would have got? From what I read it sounds like a wannabe "Heathers", a film that I haven't watched, but should do so from what I read and heard of it. The film runs for just under 80 minutes, which gladly it did because my interested was dipping in and out within that time. Nice idea to begin with, but not to long it falls into the tiring same-old-same-old category.