Jailbait

A B movie, but a pretty enjoyable one. Chock full of downtown L.A. cliches (hookers, thugs, junkies) and gratuitous nudity, but overall a better story and better acting than most movies of the sort. Renee Humphrey (also see "Mallrats" for her fun role as Trish) is very good, and C. Thomas Howell is much better than most reviews have said. Ah, remember those days when he starred in REAL movies? "The Outsiders", "Soul Man"? He seems to be slumming it here as much as his character. The two leads have enormous chemistry and the relationship presented here is surprisingly tender for this kind of film. As far as the supporting cast goes, the actor playing Roman is sufficiently creepy. In short: The film kept my interest even though I rolled my eyes a few times.

This film is about a 17 year old named Kyle Bradley,(Renee Humphrey) who goes to the big city to find her half sister Merci who is a singer and she has the police after her for getting involved in a murder.

Kyle being a very young girl runs into all kinds of creeps who want to rape her and turn her in on the sex slave market. However, Kyle meets up with Sergeant Lee Teffler, (C Thomas Howell) who befriends her and gives her a place to live at his own pad.

Sgt. Lee finds out he is also looking for Merci and the plot thickens and Lee gets himself involved with a bunch of hoods who are cold blooded and love to kill and torture.

Sgt. Lee begins to fall in love with 17 year old Kyle and her age stops him from wanting to make love to her which causes many problems between the two of them. Entertaining film. Enjoy.

I must say a bad and clichéd film like this, manages to be very entertaining for a few reasons. 1- being cleavage, 2- being unintentionally funny- 3- C Thomas Howell who's descended into these B films, through no fault of his own. It's like he has to grin and take it. Not really caring about this film, through his on par performance, he plays cool super loner cop/once a street beggar for all of us to see. Streetwise as this films better known in Oz, doesn't have a bad story to it. A working girl has become a fugitive, after one of her tricks at a seedy motel, gets it in a sensitive region of his anatomy, a shock value scene in the investigation. She was seen leaving prior to the shooting, as she was tipped off by a slug of a character, dressed Hawaiian style, who likes to dog for the police. He mirrors sleazeball characters out of other vice films. Her younger sister, well played by Humphrey, acts tough on the outside, but who's scared on the inside, has just arrived at L.A, of course not knowing her beauty, is a pimp magnet. Her and Howell soon collide (yes they pash A little later) try to track her down (visions of Angel 3, I know) which has Howell visiting old haunts, a big player pimp, who uses his girls in sex tapes. This movie's an all so addictive watch. It's a prime example of how bad can be good. If a Howell fan, this demands your strict attention.

I have seen Jailbait more times than I can even remember. I am not exaggerating when I say that it has the greatest love story I have seen on film, and I never get tired of watching it. I can really sense the chemistry between Howell's character and Humphrey's character (as well as between Howell and Humphrey themselves) and I am more convinced every time I watch it that Howell's detective truly cares for Humphrey's runaway. It is a very inspiring film; it almost makes you want to do the same thing for some underprivileged youth, and makes you a little jealous if you have never had someone in your life that you can look after in such a noble way.

Renne Humphrey does a nice job playing the role of Kyle the sexy seventeen year old runaway (she was nineteen at the time). She later appeared in "Sex Monster" as the lesbian lover of Meryl Hemmingway in the delightful sex farce. C. Thomas Howell is a little hard to take as the detective forcing off his attraction to her.