Excellent but underrated film

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I was reading someone else's review of this film, and he asked the question in my summary heading. The answer to that is simply. Joan Jett was the executive producer and Cherie Curries book was the basis of the story. Lita Ford was written off as a villain, and Jackie Fox was background scenery. Had this film been made today, I don't think Jackie's story would have been left out. Ironically Jackie went on to become a graduate of Harvard Law School and came out with her story of being raped by Fowley. Micki Steele's involvement would have been interesting as well. What a shame. I'll look forward to a real documentary about this band in the future that tells the complete story of everyone, and isn't transformed into the Joan Jett show. I would expect this from Gene Simmons. I gave this an 8 because at least two members got to tell their story, and problems associated with this band's startup. Also it shows what a jerk Kim was to the human race.

Released in 2010, "The Runaways" chronicles the quick rise and fall of all-girl rock band The Runaways who released four albums from 1976-1978. I mean "girl" literally since they WERE girls at the time; for instance, when the band was formed in late 1975 singer Cherie Currie just turned 16 years-old. The movie is lightly based on Currie's book Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway and therefore focuses on the friendship of Cherie (Dakota Fanning) and Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and their relationship with their eccentric manager Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon). Riley Keough plays Cherie's "better looking" sister while Scout Taylor-Compton and Stella Maeve play band members Lita Ford and Sandy West.The Runaways had some brief success in the late 70s, but they quickly nosedived because they were teenagers and simply couldn't handle the pressures and temptations of the 70's rock 'n' roll lifestyle, particularly Cherie. The movie successfully illustrates this. Of course "Cherry Bomb" was a fairly well known song but, beyond this, they just weren't that popular. They were a here-today-gone-tomorrow act; a minor blip in rock history. You could say they were a good "farm band" for the more popular Joan Jett and Lita Ford. Speaking of the latter, Scout Taylor-Compton looks uncannily like her, but the character is given short shrift in favor of Jett and Currie. While this is understandable given that the movie was based on Currie's book and the short 96-minute runtime, there's no excuse for ignoring Lita at the end when the movie cites what the characters went on to accomplish. Since Ford was the second most successful Runaway in the music business, second only to Jett, this is inexcusable.Despite this grave transgression, the movie works because of the great performances of the principle actors. Shannon is particularly effective as the freakish Fowley (who passed away in 2015 at the age of 75). Unfortunately, with a movie that's only an hour and a half long they can only tell so much of the story. Currie described the real story as epic and that the movie is just a "lighter kind of flash" of what The Runaways were for two and a half years. Being a 70's rock biopic of teenage girls you can expect the sex & drugs elements with profanity, crudeness and a dismal pall. Like 1991's "The Doors," the movie doesn't show much of the fun side of rock 'n' roll.If you can look beyond the vulgarity and ugliness, however, the movie has (some) heart. For instance, the genuine friendship of Jett and Currie, which can be observed in the phone call at the end; and the loving relationship of Cherie and her sister Marie. The sisters went on to record a couple albums together – 1978's BEAUTY'S ONLY SKIN DEEP and 1980's MESSIN' WITH THE BOYS – but their music career failed to go further due to Cherie's problems with drug dependency.I liked this movie better the second time I watched it. It's too crude and dreary for my tastes and it lags here and there, but it makes up for it with effective performances and the warm relationships noted above. Plus it has a rockin' soundtrack. If you watch recent interviews, you'll observe that Lita and Cherie grew up to be palpably honorable, beautiful women. Joan's cool too, of course; she's just not my cup of java, although I like some of her songs. The film was shot in the Los Angeles area.GRADE: B- (6.5/10)

The Runaways is my all time favorite movie, based off of Cherie Currie the ex-lead singer of the runaways book called neon angel, of course it's a movie so there were some things in the movie that were not correct but the runaways movie captured the essence of the real runaways band. This movie stars amazing actors such as Kristen Stewart who plays Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning who plays Cherie Currie and Michael Shannon who plays Kim Fowley, they all out on great performances, especially Kristen she was really committed to the role. The Runaways was the very first all girl Rock band who were tough and rebellious and in the movie it really captured that, also people in the other reviews said some things about how besides Cherie and Joan the other members weren't included enough in this movie that is because lita ford the lead guitarist of the group refused to let them use her story, next is Sandy west, Sandy died in 2006 and couldn't really get much of her story without it coming from her and also Jackie Fox is a lawyer now and the crew for the runaways movie didn't want to take any chances also because the runaways changed bass players throughout. The Runaways is a great movie for Rock and roll lovers!

The Runaways were part of the hard rock revolution and were an all female group. The movie is the story of Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and how she created "The Runaways" with Kim Foley (Michael Shannon) as their manager. Along the way they recruit Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) to be the bands lead singer and face. This is a very realistic look at how drugs (alcohol included) was part of the bands daily life and eventually their downfall. Joan Jett continued after the Runaways disbanded and became a major force in hard rock music throughout the 70's and 80's and still performs today.The Runaways music is some of my favourite music of all time and in the movie Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart actually sing in the live music scenes. I am a fan of Dakota Fanning and Micheal Shannon, but I did not know too much about Kristen Stewart, who is a fine actress and I look forward to seeing more of her work. If you are a lover of hard rock, watch the movie and listen to the Runaways discography. I was thoroughly entertained by this movie.