New on DVD: The Runaways

Rock 'n' roll was a man's game in 1974. Electric guitar-playing girls need not apply. And an all-girl band ... well, don't make a much younger and more handsome version of myself laugh.

But Joan Jett is in a make-folks-giggle kind of mood. She's convinced there has to be a way to break through the rock world's gender-biased glass ceiling. Why, she's got her tight leather jacket and spray-painted T-shirt all set for her first album cover.

Then she runs across slightly wigged-out independent music producer Kim Fowley. And he likes the all-girl slant. The seedy impresario quickly hooks Jett up with a drummer and sets them loose practicing in a garbage-strewn trailer. Other young females join in and the trailer starts to rock, but Fowley is convinced they need a sexier frontwoman than the snarling Jett. 

So after a little club trolling they come up with Cherie Currie--a Ziggy Stardust-coiffed beauty whose only singing experience is lip-syncing to David Bowie at a high school talent contest. Never mind that, though. The Runaways are officially off and running. And screaming. And strutting. 

Fowley torments the girls into pumping up the raunchy side of their act to the tune of hip thrusts, spread-eagle poses and come-hither growls. Finally satisfied, he tells them they're ready to jump into the first round of low-ball gigs.

"You b‑‑ches are going to be bigger than the f‑‑‑ing Beatles," he screams.

As a rock group, The Runaways were pretty much a here-today-gone-tomorrow band, most memorable for daring to headline teen female rockers and for serving as the launching pad for Joan Jett. In the annals of rock 'n' roll moviedom, The Runaways will be even less memorable. In fact, if this uneven and utterly unlovable film is remembered at all it will be only for its edgy sexuality--including a lesbian kissing/sex scene between actress Kristen Stewart, 19, and co-star Dakota Fanning, 15. 

"Of course, everyone's talking about it like it's a huge deal, because, like, you know, we're young and whatever," Stewart said about the scene in an Access Hollywood interview. "It actually is a really good example of how they were living at that time. It's, like, whatever is sort of in front of you, if you want it, take it."

While Stewart's simple and unconcerned assessment fails to brush aside the controversy, it

does do a good job of summing up the central action in this girls of rock fantasy flick. Joan Jett and Cherie Currie quickly find minor fame and even more quickly slide down into drugs, alcohol and solipsistic excess.

"I just love the fact that they were so young, doing things that girls weren't supposed to do, and the energy of what it's like to be without parental ... anything." writer/director Floria Sigismondi told nowtoronto.com. 

I don't love that fact. But parental nothingness is certainly evident in the crumbling choices of the rudderless Jett and Currie. So maybe The Runaways will serve as a cinematic cautionary tale about the evils of rockin' excess.

Well, maybe not.

"Dakota Fanning is a wonderful actress and since she was a babe, she always delivers," opined screencrave.com reviewer Mali Elfman. "Some people see this as her coming out of her shell and becoming a women with her role as Cherie Currie. I could only see a 15-year-old girl in lingerie with her legs spread. Instead of these scenes being powerful and proving a point that this girl was lost, they looked more like kiddie porn." 

For all of this film's rock 'n' roll crash-and-burn it's the constant and jarring leer that audiences will soak up. Early on, Kim Fowley salivates over his sleazy vision of a pretty girl group, saying, "Jail f‑‑‑ing bait! Jack-f‑‑‑ing-pot!" And it's that obscene and twisted exclamation that serves as The Runaways' real point.