Making biopics or even rendering history in documentary terms necessitates a filmmaker to leave at least some of the story out.

And in The Runaways, it seems as if the story’s been much condensed to fit into the traditional hour and some change length. Certainly, the group played more than a few gigs before heading of to Japan. In the movie it takes maybe fifteen minutes to get there. Time’s a tricky thing, it’s deceptive and can’t be real if displayed on film. Enough nitpicking, though, ‘cause the story here is pretty compelling.

After being rejected by any sort of dude based rock group – or at least not being pleased with the results – an unconnected group of five teenage girls wound up forming the Runaways in 1975. Of course, it was all kind of a fluke. But meeting through Kim Fowley, here played by Michael Shannon, who does like a bit Frankenstein-sh, was probably the luckiest moment for any of the girls involved.

The fluke, portrayed in the film in much simplified terms, occurred out side of a prominent LA. Deejay’s club one evening. And while the random happenstance of all these girls being around at the same time – and damned good musicians – is startling, working with Fowley should be understood in the same way.

The man worked with a veritable who’s who of the sixties SoCal rock thing and even helped write and produce work by Cat Stevens that doesn’t stink. For that alone, Fowley deserves to be enshrined in the RnR Hall of Fame.

Anyway, the Runaways, as conceived of by this producer extraordinaire, was basically exploitative. Find some girls, dress ‘em up to please a male audience, while pandering to feminists and saying it’s all empowering and have the group play simple, glammed up hard rock.

Granted the timing for all of this was auspicious with punk right around the corner and all. Unfortunately, for the girls (and for the film) Cherie Currie as played by Dakota Fanning falls into drugs while reaching towards perpetual fame. In real life, the slippery slope eventually broke up the original line up. In the film, it just counts as a boring twenty minutes or so of Fanning passing out in hotels, yelling at people in the grocery story and generally acting like a fool.

It almost doesn’t matter whether or not viewers are fans of the Runaways, because up until the point that the wheels come off, the quickly paced effort should be able to hold just about anyone’s attention. Good soundtrack too, ‘natch.