Jacki (Gina Gershon, Driven) is two days away from her 40^th birthday – an event most people don't exactly welcome with open arms.  But for Jacki, the impending milestone is even more sadly meaningful because of her chosen career.  She isn't a claims adjustor with a growing 401(k), or a letter carrier looking forward to a nice pension, or even a unionized factory worker with decent health insurance.  No; our Jacki fronts an LA punk band that plays for such pitiful sums of money, it's not even enough to offset the cost of burying herself in eyeliner.

Jacki is no closer to "making it" than she was 20 years ago when she got off the bus in LA and staggered into a club where X was playing.  That's what she explains in the narration of Prey for Rock & Roll, the film adaptation of Cheri Lovedog's life and stage play of the same name.  Gershon, who sports the appropriate punk rock snarl and recorded her vocals live to film, is the driving force behind the movie, which should appeal to fans of the riot grrrl scene and female-driven independent cinema.

Jacki's latest band incarnation is Clamdandy, which also features junkie trust-fund brat Tracy (Drea de Matteo, The Sopranos) as well as a lead guitar player named Faith (Lori Petty, Tank Girl), who is in a relationship with Sally (Shelly Cole, Gilmore Girls), the much younger drummer.  Shortly after the film's rockin' opener, we see Jacki at home with girlfriend Jessica when she gets a phone call that interrupts their massage wand love session.  Turns out Clamdandy might have a chance to open for X at an upcoming gig – something that could be a big break for the band, but would definitely be a career highlight for Jacki.

But then Prey forgets all about the potential X show and launches into a fairly melodramatic tale involving sexual molestation, rape, busted-up relationships, manslaughter, drug abuse and some even more troubling – and potentially offensive – themes I won't reveal here because it would ruin the story.  Jacki wants to dissolve the band, shouting, "How many more signs do you need?" to her bandmates.  But those plucky little punks want to keep plowing forward.  

Prey was directed by Alex Steyermark, who served as a music supervisor/editor for dozens of pictures, including Hedwig and the Angry Inch and most of Spike Lee's films.  He keeps the film lively enough, especially the scenes involving Clamdandy's stage performances (and even their rehearsals).  I'm not sure how biographical Lovedog's characters are, but they seen fairly unclichéd, particularly when Prey is in its more thoughtful and touching moments.  Some of the dialogue is laughably bad, but the four female leads all legitimately looked like they knew how to play their instruments, which is a big selling point for a film of this genre. And I dug the closing credits, which were on rock handbills.

1:44 -

for language, sexual content, drug use and brief violence