JAWBREAKER (1999) by John Sylva Rating: D+
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>From writer and director Darren Stein comes Jawbreaker, the poorly told tale of what can happen when an innocent birthday prank goes wrong. At Reagan High, four girls are sitting on top of the world. Courtney Shane, played by Rose McGowan, holds the title of meanest, most disrespectful soul in the school. Everyone hates her, but everyone envies her due to her popularity. Courtney is the "leader" of her clique, which also includes Julie, played by Rebecca Gayheart, Liz Purr, played by Charlotte Roldan, and Marcie, played by Julie Benz are the other three in the group. It is Liz's seventeenth birthday, and Julie, Courtney, and Marcie concur that they will play a seemingly innocent prank on her, but the prank results in the death of Liz.
Just like stupid teens in any teen directed film such as this one, the foursome decide to cover up the death to make it look like a murder committed by someone else. And also just like in other teen directed movies, one of the four don't agree with hiding it, this time that character being Julie. And finally, just like in other teen movies, there is a witness outside the group trying to hide the truth. This time that character being Fern Mayo (Judy Greer), who is subject to many cracks from Courtney's group, as well as the entire school. >From here, Jawbreaker turns into a predictable tale of revenge, bad morals, and at least trying to do the right thing.
Not only is the script weak, on a whole the acting is horrid thanks to a large amount of the main cast. Judy Greer is undeniably awful as her one dimensional, annoying character, as she overacts every line she has. Also on the bad side of acting is Julie Benz, almost falling to the annoying factor that Greer delivers.
On the positive side of acting, Rose McGowan performs well here, but doesn't match her wickedly clever performance as "Tatum", in 1996's Scream. McGowan's role is annoying, but this only adds to the film. She is wickedly mean, and even though she a well-written character, you downright hate her. Faring even better than McGowan is Rebecca Gayheart, who is always exceptionally believable as her roles. When the script feeds her a one or two dimensional character, she turns it into three, always putting strong emotion and power into her roles. Gayheart isn't given as much to do here as she was in 1998's Urban Legend, but you can still get a strong taste of her acting skills in Jawbreaker.
Jawbreaker drifts and mianders different sub plots throughout, hardly throwing anything for the viewer to get absorbed in. We get way off of the topic of the jawbreaker incident, and get into things that don't have anything to do with the actual film. The beginning and ending are strong, it's just the middle that needs a lot of help. During the body of the movie, it is undeniably repetitive, never progressing towards a conclusion. Nothing to grab the viewer's interest is around, and the same, extremely annoying song plays over and over again.
Jawbreaker tries to get off on the same time of humor used in the 1995 film Clueless, but falls flat. The few gags that actually work die off quickly and die off with a bang. All in all, a horrible disappointment.
The Bottom Line: The tagline reads, "Even the sweetest candies are sour as death inside." Yes, that is too true. No matter how good this film may have looked, it fails to deliver.
Film reviewed November 28th, 1999.
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