The Runaways, based on lead-singer Cherie Currie's book Neon Angel. is not strictly the story of the band but rather that of Currie and Joan Jett, the only member who managed to wrest some measure of recognition after the band’s demise. If you want a more rounded and indeed truer account of the band, then check out one-time Runaways' bassist Victory Tischler-Blue’s 2004 documentary Edgeplay, in which the now middle-aged women reflect on their experiences. It is not a little ironic that Joan Jett does not appear in that film although she is credited as an executive producer on this one.

Any good music film makes you want to find out more about the band, get their music, if not outright pick up an instrument and start bangin' out some songs. Ms. Sigismondi’s film does none of these things and not because it's a typical tale story of rock n'roll use and abuse. Ok, The Runaways were not great musos, in fact they only really had one great song, the classic “Cherry Bomb”, but if one thing impresses about this film is how one can take such potentially in-you-face material and make it so seem so drab.

The essential problem is the pacing. Ms. Sigismondi, who also write the script, adopts a linear approach and largely confines herself to sequential exposition - this happens, then that happens and so on. But in so doing she robs the film of a dynamic. And there are simply too many points at which the editing compounds the problem, opting for some kind of narrative progression when a kick ass jump cut is crying out to be used. This also works to the reverse effect. as by the time the band gets to Japan it suddenly sounds a whole lot better than it had immediately previously but with no demonstrable indication of why. (There are also some glaring editing clangers  - Joan and Cherie are shown chatting in an alley-way while the band can still be heard on stage in the background and in another scene, Cherie comes off-stage in Japan and when she enters the dressing room, she is in a different outfit).

Casting too is also a problem. Although she starts off well enough during Cherie's Bowie-worshipping days, Dakota Fanning is so sweetly innocuous beneath the glam make-up that she has no real impact as a punk rocker. Her best screen moments are spent trying to deal with her divorced parents and mooning over Don McLean’s “Vincent” .  Kristen Stewart, on the other hand, does a convincing job as Joan Jett, but it is really only when Michael Shannon as their foul-mouthed would-be Svengali, Kim Fowley (surely known as Kim Foully) is on screen that the film has any life.The rest of the time it walks a familiar line.

The third major problem is with the script. I haven’t read the book but I assume that the band members beside Jett got a mention. Here they barely figure. Even if we accept the focus on Jett and Curie as valid, there really isn’t much of dramatic interest in the relationship. The film reveals their physical intimacy but it is unaccompanied by any psychological or emotional depth. This is only achieved with Cherie’s twin sister, Marie (Riley Keough) but she wasn’t in the band, even though, as Dewey Finn has memorably said, “you don’t have to be in the band to be IN the band”.

I can’t imagine many people finding this film of interest. Young fans of Twilight franchise co-stars, Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, will wonder what it is about, older fans of the band or punk music will be disappointed by lack of insight and social history and frankly, the lack of sine qua non of Punk, attitude. And i mean real attitude not some Hollywood version of it.  In other words, The Runaways is a missed opportunity that you could well miss.