Jailbreakers (Jailbreakers, 1994) directed by William Friedkin is a good movie about very bad guys greasers. Jailbreakers is one of a series of films for television Rebel Highway. If you believe IMDB, then he is the eighth in a row. The entire line of these films draws its inspiration from the B-movies of the fifties of the last century and tries its best to be like them. Accordingly, the plot of the film was set exactly at that time, and all the scenery and other background were tried to match exactly that period. That’s why this movie presents us with everything we love so much: well-groomed rebels for no reason (of course, all bad guys), cheerleading girls falling in love with them (of course, all completely innocent and pretty), rock and roll in half with rhythm and blues, well, cars, where without them.
The fleet should be unobtrusively described in a separate line. In addition to the ordinary handsome Buicks and Fords, truly iconic units are rolling out to the fore. For example, a gang of bikers in full force rides Triumph, among which there is a Triumph Thunderbird model – the one on which the protagonist of the movie The Wild One dissected, albeit of a different year of release. In response, the coppers saddled a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide – a real icon of the American police, whose name is inscribed in the history of cinema with a separate road movie Electra Glide In Blue. Of the man’s four-wheeled friends, a Chevrolet Corvette C1 appears in the frame – the dream of all the youth of the 50s, the model in which Willem Dafoe rode in the movie The Loveless.
Well, it is impossible not to mention the luxurious Chevrolette Bel Air in the convertible, the very personification of the fifties, imprinted in steel, whose name has become synonymous with America in the middle of the last century.
The action of the film supposedly takes place in the late 50s-early 60s. Young criminal Tony (Anthony Sabato Jr.) travels around the city on a motorcycle, communicating with the same “scum of society” and having all the makings of a leader of a small gang.
A 15-year-old beauty from the cheerleaders of the “support team” Angel (Shannen Doherty) falls in love with the image of a classic bad guy. She is attracted by his danger, adventurism, fearlessness. All this, combined with his model appearance and pumped-up figure, has a detrimental effect on her. She falls in love with Tony and next to him she forgets about everything. Tony looks like a young Marlon Brando from Wild One, except that he doesn’t pout, doesn’t wear a cap and smears his hair with grease.
Baby Angel can get any guy in town, but she doesn’t know exactly what she wants. Like her mother in her youth, Angel is torn between living a normal life surrounded by family and breaking down and leaving with a wayward lover in exotic countries. After all, life in an ordinary American town is such that you can go crazy with boredom.
“Skinny” (Adrian Brody) is the second coolest biker, although he plays the role of salabon. The Hero’s lover escapes on an iron horse and his partner helps him in this. The entourage of the Jailbreaker scene is similar to the one in the Natural Born Killers, only here the hero escapes on an iron horse and his partner helps him in this.
Skinny is not inferior in coolness to The Hero. Adrian Brody sits firmly in the saddle of Triumph
And this couple is also like Romeo and Juliet, but still the puzzle does not add up. Juliet, unlike Romeo, is not ready to go to the end, and Romeo himself acts too directly and impulsively, sometimes he lacks intelligence. Perhaps this is his charm, he is a man of business, but he can also break firewood without thinking about the consequences.
Jailbreakers also resembles Rodriguez’s Roadracers, compare the characters of John Hawkes and Adrian Brody, but they are almost the same person! Tony wants to become someone special, to be unlike the inhabitants of the city, in this he is close to Dude, except that the latter is thinking of seriously doing music, and not criminal tours followed by escape to Mexico. Both are outsiders, of course, but The Hero of Arquette is prone to reflection and reflection, has a sense of humor. The Hero Sabato is worriedly serious, almost never smiled during the film. Well, there was a time when he and Skinny made a deal with a horse and got money. And in fact, there is only one Jailbreaker here, as well as Roadracer. Hmm, it looks like I’m getting an essay “The image of Eugene Onegin in American films about greasers.”
And Angel, like Selma Hayek’s Donna, is about the same collective image of a simple girly girl with a bright appearance, pining for bad guys. Such that they play the role of girlfriends of the “bad guys”, at the same time not being “bad” themselves. The episodic role of one of the gang of hooligans from Christian Klemash, who migrated from the “Racers”.
It would seem that there should be a lot of rock and roll in our film, but there are almost no songs or even background music here.
Meat Puppets – The House Of Blue Light
It seems that the creators are embarrassed to play the songs loudly, because they did not buy the rights to them. In the end credits, The House Of Blue Light from Meat Puppets sounds (a cover of Chuck Berry), even in the film you can hear The Scarlets – Stampede, The Nomads – Blue Mallard, Fats Domino – Little Mary, Ed Townsend – For Your Love.
Listen or download the Jailbreakers soundtrack (1994):
And here’s the movie itself, in case you don’t have it:
The movie is quite short (1 hour and a little) and very dynamic. In general, in my opinion, Jailbreakers are on a solid four, mainly due to belonging to the cult Rebel Highway series and the young acting generation.
I really enjoyed escaping from Prison, especially in the context of the Kurgan-Yekaterinburg train. The joke is that for the filming of each of these episodes, the director received $ 1 million dollars and had to shoot the film in 12 days, hence this certain “cheapness”.
And Shannen Doherty is a pretty “bad” girl in real life, the star of the TV series Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed was filmed for Playboy (March 1994 and December 2003)
I’ll put my two cents in this jukebox. Zink. And I’ll choose this record.
On the good side, we have the fact that despite the cheapness, the film manages to set the right atmosphere at the right time. Scenery, actors, dialogues – a separate plus deserves to be discussed by the characters of the film On The Waterfront starring Marlon Brando and how they parody the dialogues from there. It all sets you up for the mid-fifties.
On the bad side, there are all the typical disadvantages typical of a cheap TV movie. Cars sometimes flash in the background much later than necessary, although there is a chance that you will not notice them: only in one scene they are very clearly visible in the frame – in the rest the director hid them. Editing here and there leaves much to be desired – gluing frames does not infuriate, but it puts pressure on the brain of an avid moviegoer. The characters are tossed from side to side too much – I still did not fully understand their character and could not determine my attitude towards them. Either the script was written in a hurry, or…
in general, it’s a typical average movie for TV. Objectively: you can definitely watch it at least once. You’ll almost certainly leave satisfied, although you probably won’t want to watch this movie a second time.
Subjectively, the film is even above average, because it has a native theme and beautiful cars. The imitation of the fifties film was, on the whole, a success. Fans of this topic are recommended to watch it once, and you can even review it if desired.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot. I watched it in the original, so I can’t say how well the translation affects all of the above.