Detroit Rock City Reviews

A very sweet, very funny coming-of-age story, featuring Kiss as the Great White Whale of adolescence. It's 1978 and four members of a teen Kiss cover band are finally going to see their heroes in concert. Unfortunately drummer Jam (Sam Huntington) — the sensitive one, which is a pretty good joke — has a religious maniac of a Mom who despairs that he wants to see the Devil in the flesh, "and in Detroit, no less." Many picaresque plot developments later, the quartet arrives at Cobo Hall, sans tickets, and splits up in an attempt to crash the show. In the ensuing long night's journey , stoner Trip (James De Bello) shakes down a creepy little kid and stops a 7-11 robbery; Lex (Giuseppe Andrews), the smart one, is pursued by feral dogs and saves a girl from gang rape; leader Hawk (Edward Furlong) dances and vomits in a male strip joint; and Jam loses his virginity in a confession booth. Obviously none of this (including some gratuitous Catholic and Italian bashing) should be taken too seriously; with a cartoon band like Kiss as the Holy Grail, the film is bound to be cartoonish. But the young cast is winning (particularly Furlong and Huntington), and director Adam Rifkin gets the period details right, from the Farrah Fawcett poster in the band's garage rehearsal space to the glam metal oldies on the soundtrack -- really now, when was the last time you even thought about Angel's "White and Hot"? Kiss appear only in a relatively brief final concert sequence, but the inspired point-of-view sight gag involving Gene Simmon's tongue more than compensates. World's shlubiest porn star Ron Jeremy appears as the cornball emcee at the strip club, but don't worry; he's fully clothed at all times.