The Runaways Review
By David Kempler
Could Have Been a Runaway Hit
In a classic case of rewriting music history, the legacy of Joan Jett's first band, The Runaways, has been elevated to a seminal moment, when in fact it wasn't quite that. In retrospect, it is important that it helped open the door to women in rock, but the band itself has left almost no musical legacy. Joan Jett went on to become a major name but her career is best defined by her later incarnation with the Blackhearts, from which came "I Love Rock and Roll", a true big-time rock and roll standard.
To be fair, "The Runaways" isn't really about the legacy they left as a band, but more about a group of very young, rebellious girls who fall into a life either because they feel driven to, like Joan Jett, or because they happen to be pretty and in the right place at the right time, like Cherie Currie.
In the beginning, Jett (Kristen Stewart) is forming her own self-image and she chooses black leather and yearns to be a rock star, like her idol, David Bowie. When she crosses paths with record producer Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), the wheels are set in motion for the first all-girl rock and roll band. Fowley is sleazy but successful and Shannon's on-screen demeanor fits Fowley to a tee. Jett sees Currie (Dakota Fanning) in a club a few times and they notice each other, but that's as far as it goes. When Fowley meets Currie, he sees her looks and sexuality as the obvious solution to the need for a front-woman for the band and offers it to her. She jumps on it and the race to stardom is on.
"The Runaways" is fun, lively, and well-executed, but it's a little on the sanitized side of reality. The band, in particular Ms. Currie, experienced tremendous horrors that are somewhat glossed over and it takes away the edge that should be the defining point of the story of the first all-girl rock group. This does not mean that it is a failure. It isn't, at all. But by cleaning it up for a mainstream audience, the powers behind it have ruined a great opportunity to have made a killer flick, worthy of Oscar nods. The performances are there and the story is there but the guts are somewhat lacking. It's still a real good flick but it left me wondering what if.
