August 31, 1999
Web posted at: 11:55 a.m. EDT (1555 GMT)

By Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Let's skip the pleasantries. If you're looking for a hugely idiotic movie that's written and directed by virtual no-talents, make a beeline to see "Detroit Rock City." Set in 1978, this is the story of four pot-smoking Cleveland teens who face numerous unamusing obstacles on a road trip to see a Kiss concert in Michigan.

The film evidently wants to be a satire of teen-age rock 'n' roll obsession, with a heavy dose of tacky nostalgia thrown in for good measure. But director Adam Rifkin and screenwriter Carl V. DuPré's staggering lack of ability turns out to be the only reason to watch.

They're so profoundly inept it almost becomes a Zen experience. The members of Kiss, rich, painted-up posers that they are, are well-nigh sublime by comparison.

It's absurd to call this a character study. All the characters are interchangeable cretins with no hope whatever of even comic emotional growth. But the plot of "Detroit Rock City" could have been written on a sheet of toilet paper. It's a character study by default.

Rifkin and DuPré's central failing -- beyond choosing to enter the film industry -- is that they seem to think the film has to be heroically stupid to properly convey the 25-year traveling carnival of foolishness that is Kiss. Well, intentionally foolish they may be, but at least the members of Kiss have a sense of rhythm and know exactly when to hit a power chord. And their songs don't last 95 minutes.

The "heroes" of the story are Hawk (Edward Furlong, in dire need of a nap), Trip (James DeBello), Lex (Giuseppe Andrews) and Jeremiah (Sam Huntington). They're high-school buddies who've been inspired by Kiss to form a band of their own. Trip, of course, is the big stoner, but they all smoke weed and drink beer. And hoot. They like to hoot a lot. That's as fleshed-out as they get.

The first scene consists of them screeching away in a basement full of tacked-up rock 'n' roll posters. Let's just ignore the highly inappropriate inclusion of Bob Dylan on this particular altar.

Rifkin splices the band's performance with a hyperactive string of thoroughly unmotivated cuts, and that's his calling card throughout the film. Simple conversations between two people consist of a two-shot, a reverse angle, another reverse angle, an overhead shot, another two-shot, the camera placed between someone's legs, the camera placed across the room, another two-shot, a tracking shot, a speeded-up hand-held shot, etc.

He also likes to add needless little jump cuts so people hop around a scene to no discernible end. You'd think he just got a Moviola and a bottle of amphetamines for Christmas.

The primary villain is Jeremiah's mother (Lin Shaye), and she's played as if she'd been improperly delivered with forceps. Shaye puffs cigarettes, rolls her eyes and grits her teeth, all while screaming "Kiss is the music of Satan!" straight into the camera lens.

She's supposed to be a Carpenters-loving hysteric, but this kind of thing doesn't even work in "Saturday Night Live" skits anymore. It's embarrassing in a wide-angle, spittle-on-the-lip sort of way, like that old Fresh Prince video where the grotesque Mom shakes her finger at her son while wearing curlers and horn-rimmed glasses.

Shaye sets fire to the guys' Kiss tickets, so they have to drive out to Michigan hoping to score some more when they get there. The rest of the film consists of things like a priest who digs negligees, a pizza thrown against the windshield of a moving Trans Am, and Furlong filling a beer pitcher up with vomit.

It's not even smart enough to be sophomoric. It's freshman-moronic.

There's also a girl named Beth (Melanie Lynskey) who kisses Jeremiah while the Kiss ballad "Beth" plays in the background. See how this works?

It didn't have to be this way. Richard Linklater's hilarious 1970s "Dazed and Confused" (1993) covers comparably flimsy territory, but -- here's a good idea -- Linklater's characters are written as real people with hopes and desires. You grow to care about them and pull for them despite their adolescent frailties. It actually makes a difference what happens next because you don't want anyone to get hurt.

Plus, Linklater's talent for understated detail sells the period without a bunch of painfully obvious posters and sloganeering.

In "Detroit Rock City," anyone who isn't a Kiss fan -- or, worse yet, anyone who likes disco -- is presented in the same manner as Jeremiah's mother. They're all infantile nincompoops who are somehow less fit for existence than a dope-head whose very favorite album is "Love Gun."

There's no sense of joyous release here, the very thing that Kiss supplies to frustrated teens, no matter how crude the presentation. The movie simply bullies its belief into any given situation, and that's not cool. Or particularly difficult.

"Detroit Rock City" is not to be confused with Tennessee's Rock City, which you'll find advertised on birdhouses around the country. The film contains drinking, drugging, leering, violence, profanity and Edward Furlong taking off his shirt to reveal the physique of an indolent 40-year-old. Yikes. Rated R. 95 minutes.

"Detroit Rock City" is a production of CNN Interactive sister company New Line Cinema, a Time Warner property.