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Custom-designed for its target audience -- hardcore Kiss fans, teen males and those who wish they were either -- it promises and spews forth a steady barrage of blatantly outrageous acts while delivering the most far-fetched array of juvenile fantasy fulfilment one is apt to witness in a movie this year. Understand now, the folks who queue-up to see this bargain basement coming-of-age film aren't overly concerned with the finer nuances of plot, the witty gradations of the sub-text or whether the director has adeptly fashioned an homage to the genre. They know what they want. And like the movie's single-minded characters, they want it now.
Speedily filling this need with brainless glee, not standing on ceremony to evolve its story, Detroit Rock City is junk food for the mind. But caution is advised: Viewers ever vigilant not to contaminate their motion picture palates should be wary; since filmgoers don't live by haute cinema alone, this daft free-for-all could prove a tasty diversion. The temptation to go bottom feeding may call. If it happens, suppress it. And by all means, don't tell a soul.
The stoned-out four find themselves without tickets to the much-anticipated concert when one of their moms, a doomsday-spouting Holy Roller (Lin Shaye) with an obsessive hatred for Kiss, confiscates the much-cherished ducats. So what's a stereotypically diverse group of two-dimensional pals to do? Well, that's simple enough. First, for no particular reason, they wreak havoc in the girl's bathroom, probably causing permanent psychological damage to a cheerleader who was using the facilities. This perfunctory bit of toilet humour out of the way, they then steal another mom's Volvo and just head for the concert anyway. Something will work out. For this gang, that constitutes a well thought out plan.
Along the way, they stop off at a parochial school to rescue one of their parentally banished number by slipping the priest some hallucinogenic mushrooms. They also make sure to fight a rock 'n' roll civil war with a Trans Am full of disco-loving greasers.
A fall-out of said conflict, they collect Christine (Natasha Lyonne), a defector from the enemy camp. Spotting the disco disciple hitchhiking, sensitive Lex (Giuseppe Andrews) suggests potential danger to her person by opining," That's how some horror movies start out....a teen-aged girl walking along a road." The other boys aren't particularly swayed by the observation. But then Trip (James De Bello), who earned the character-appropriate nickname from his mother's acid-induced condition during childbirth, adds, "It's also how some porno movies start." The car screeches to a stop.
Bawdy and raw, making sure to provide a steady splatter of four-lettered favourites, that's about as inventive as the dialogue gets. Otherwise, the stupid script is populated with outright loopy pronouncements, such as when one boy defends their automotive benefactor (her license plate reads Ob Gyn) by arguing, "Just because she's a female gynaecologist doesn't make her a lesbian."
Carrying on helter-skelter like high school versions of the Marx Brothers, but without benefit of either acting talent or comic skill, once they reach Detroit the foursome splits up in search of the elusive tickets. Lo and behold, Detroit on the eve of the Kiss concert turns out to be the teen answer to Shangri-La, where a young man can realise his most hormone-driven fantasy.
Though he's the least likeable of the gang, his Napoleonic pushiness recalling the Bowery Boys' Leo Gorcey, it's still hard not to cheer for Hawk (Edward Furlong) when he seeks to win the ticket money at, of all places, a male-oriented discotheque. Deigning to enter an amateur striptease contest there, apparently his sex appeal is not in the least compromised when the booze he imbibes helps him break the volume record for vomiting. Because shortly thereafter, he meets his Mrs. Robinson (Shannon Tweed as Amanda), who doesn't seem to mind his regurgitation prowess one iota. She is willing to buy him the tickets. And you can colour in the rest of the scenario.
Meanwhile, Jam (Sam Huntington), whose religious right mom has for the second time carted him off to the closest church for exorcism of his Kiss jones, is serendipitously united with his secret heartthrob, Beth (Melanie Lynskey). How lucky. Her parents just happen to be passing through Detroit on the way to Dad's job relocation in Ann Arbor. Suffice it to note that Beth and a confessional figure in the gratification of Jam's fantasy.
Rounding out the absurd chimeras, Trip, who proudly has continued the family tradition of substance abuse, meets his destiny during a hold-up attempt in a convenience store. And Lex, who becomes a Tarzan to Detroit's junkyard dogs, gets to play the hero by saving Christine from some very unsavoury car-jackers.
Because the teen romp aspect is not without its nostalgia quotient, this could very well spawn a surreptitious market among the middle-aged once the film goes video. "Hmm, okay, let me have one copy of Citizen Kane, also La Strada, please, and of course a copy of The Battleship Potemkin and oh, yeah, this piece of trash, 'Detroit Whatever,' for my freeloading son-in-law with the earring in his tongue; the idiot."
At long last, all of Detroit Rock City's feeble-minded high jinx lead to the grand conclusion, the concert itself, a pyrotechnically-charged few minutes featuring the actual rock idols. So, one must wonder, do the four manage to make the scene? That's a no-brainer. The far more intriguing question is, where will you be when Kiss finally takes the stage?
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