Prey for Rock & Roll
After 20 years of slithering from one nasty club to the next, Jacki, the lead singer of the all-female, predominantly lesbian late-'80s Los Angeles punk band Clam Dandy, has begun to wonder whether she's been wasting her time. All she has are her insipid lyrics (most of them are unintelligible, and the ones that aren't are unprintable) and this movie's bargain-bin epiphanies. So the answer is yes, 1,000 times yes. Wait tables. Wash cars. Anything else.
Welcome to Alex Steyermark's ''Prey for Rock & Roll,'' a rock drama that's hung over with inauthenticity: The fake tattoos come by the armload, and there's even a character named Animal. Along with Robin Whitehouse, the movie was written by Cheri Lovedog, who spent 13 years fronting a punk outfit branded with her surname. It's distressing that she's adjusted her grueling life in the music biz to the synthetic contours of a Lifetime melodrama. Most episodes of ''Josie and the Pussycats'' seem more alive.
The casting alone should warn you about what kind of bottom this movie's going to hit. On vocals and guitar: Gina Gershon (Jacki), wearing a snarl that seems possible only with the aid of a curling iron. Also on guitar: Lori Petty (Faith), who's fun if you imagine Ellen DeGeneres playing Lori Petty playing Faith playing guitar. On bass: Drea de Matteo (Tracy), who plinks her instrument in a zombie's stupor. And finally, on drums: newcomer Shelly Cole (Sally, Faith's girlfriend). Because her character is the baby of the group you know some awful cliche is bound to befall her.
Together they're Clam Dandy, and together they shred through songs that are a generic patchwork of L7, Patti Smith, X, and the Slits. The film takes us into the lives of the band members, showing us what one-dimensional women they are.
Jacki is on the verge of 40, and she's ready to collapse into the arms of a record deal -- so much so that she interrupts making love to take business-related calls. Jacki's latest conquest (Shakara Ledard) walks out -- and she doesn't even see that embarrassing dance Jacki does in the bathroom mirror after she finds out she's scored a major gig. And Tracy likes to get drunk and high with her boyfriend, Nick (Ivan Martin), who proves to be a whopping migraine of an enabler.
It's not long after we've met the scuzzy Nick and have acquainted ourselves with Sally's improbably unsexed ex-con brother -- the aforementioned Animal (Marc Blucas) -- that we know the movie has been leading us on. It's not rock 'n' roll for which these women are prey, it's men -- and here they come in two types: rapist and potential rapist.
We go into ''Prey for Rock & Roll'' hoping that it's the flick that escapes the platitudes and self-aggrandizement that typify one music-biz flick after the next, from ''Light of Day'' to ''Glitter.'' John Cameron Mitchell's witty and subversive ''Hedwig and the Angry Inch'' had the one thing these movies are too full of hubris to consider: a sense of humor. Lovedog's tinny reminiscences make you long for the Fellini-ed self-satisfaction of Cameron Crowe's ''Almost Famous'' or even the cartoon glee of ''School of Rock.''
Since ''Prey for Rock & Roll'' refuses to be thoughtful, original, or exuberant, it demands great performance to transcend the cliches -- or at least set them on fire. But the cast is content to let the poses and body art do all the work. This is bad news for Gershonistas who've come for a work of blazing, ego-driven force. She's just coasting on her erotic reputation.
For all their rage and suffering, the ladies of Clam Daddy fail to produce a single song of according fury. After one unfortunate (but inevitable) incident, we see Jacki whip up something called ''Every Six Minutes.'' But the band's performance of that song lacks the molten fury of the wounding event that inspired it. I'm sad to say that even trauma in this movie feels banal.
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