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Prey for Rock & Roll (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:46
Fresh:26
Rotten:20
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: Gershon is a fierce rocker, but the plot is a cliche-filled melodrama.
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Two days before her 40th birthday, Los Angeles rock musician/tattoo artist Jacki (Gina Gershon) is considering throwing in the towel on her her dreams of stardom. As frontwoman for the all-female... Two days before her 40th birthday, Los Angeles rock musician/tattoo artist Jacki (Gina Gershon) is considering throwing in the towel on her her dreams of stardom. As frontwoman for the all-female band Clam Dandy, she gets the band booked in plenty of local clubs, but the big break she keeps hoping for never seems to materialize. To add to her frustration, her band resembles a dysfunctional family: drummer Sally (Shelly Cole), the band's youngest member, is the live-in lover of guitarist Faith (Lori Petty), and bassist Tracy (Drea De Matteo), is an addict whose habits are funded by her wealthy father. Jacki's luck seems to be on the upswing when a record company rep begins coming to the band's shows and she gains a budding romantic interest in Sally's ex-con brother, Animal (Marc Blucas)--but she can rest assured that all obstacles are not behind her. Based on Cheri Lovedog's autobiographical rock musical of the same name, PREY FOR ROCK AND ROLL offers an electric, true-to-life portrait of the struggles of a working rock band. Gina Gershon, in a formidably strong and sexy performance, sings all her own vocals in a series of fierce, punky songs also written by Lovedog. Petty, De Matteo, and Cole, who learned their respective instruments for the film, also turn in excellent work in this gritty look at the elusiveness of the rock-and-roll dream. [More]
Starring: Gina Gershon, Drea de Matteo, Marc Blucas, Lori Petty
Starring: Gina Gershon, Drea de Matteo, Marc Blucas, Lori Petty, Shelly Cole, Ivan Martin
Director: Alex Steyermark
Director: Alex Steyermark
Producer: Donovan Mannato, Gina Resnick, Gina Gershon
Screenwriter: Cheri Lovedog, Robin Whitehouse
Composer: Cheri Lovedog
Studio: Mac Releasing
Reviews for Prey for Rock & Roll
There's a sharp sense of honest rock-chick energy that draws us into this film, even when its story takes a few overwrought and melodramatic turns.
The execution is as stale as the draft beer in some of the joints where the band entertains.
Take an amateur playwright with an ax to grind, a novice director without the slightest idea of what he is doing and an actress who confuses sleaze with grittiness, and you have the makings of a first-rate flop.
Nothing drives the film, the dialogue is awful, and dramatic tensions are completely missed.
While it gets a good deal of the background right, the picture stumbles in the dramatic department.
Aside from Ms. Gershon's performance (none of the other cast members actually played), there's little to elevate the music -- or the movie -- above cliché.
So far this year we've had the wussiest rock movie ever made, Garage Days, and now Prey for Rock 'n' Roll is the most depressing -- but in a bad way.
Despite all its angst and bitterness, Prey doesn't convey the pure appreciation of rock 'n' roll that goofy Jack Black embodies in School.
Though it becomes almost laughably melodramatic and wields just about every rock-movie cliche in the book, Gershon's latest holds interest, thanks to her fiercely committed and sexy performance.
More bad things happen to these four women than one independent film can possibly carry.
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