The Jailbait Chronicles...great attention to the visual detail, but the narrative drifts and then splinters

Rating: 5/10 (29 November 2011)

Five teenage girls living in and around Hollywood in 1975 form a hard rock band which is fueled by sexual exploitation and driven to exhaustion by an adult manager with a talent for salacious promotion. Director-screenwriter Floria Sigismondi, working from Runaways vocalist Cherie Currie's autobiography "Neon Angel", does a fabulous job at recreating the look (and feel) of mid-'70s Los Angeles; from the stifling suburbs of the Valley to the street punks and dopers of the inner-city, Sigismondi's film has a visual pull and a gritty elegance that is, at once, immediate and nostalgic. Unfortunately, the time-line of events is a mess, with the band seemingly reaching international success (and finally imploding) in less than a year. The filmmakers are too concerned with getting to the cautionary aspects of this tale without giving us enough of the band's history. There was a lot of hard-hitting drama going on behind the formation and packaging of The Runaways (including distinct personality and musical differences between the real band members--Currie, Joan Jett, and Lita Ford among them), but this facile exploration of the group is mostly interested in headlines and druggy montages (which just eat up time on the clock). The costume design and art direction are spot on, and Sigismondi gets a lot of energy going in the film's early stages. However, when the band falls apart, the movie quickly follows suit. The narrative, choppy to begin with, skitters along to a wobbly conclusion; it is unsuccessful in building an emotional impact due to a basic failure in shaping and sharpening these characters. ** from ****