Hello, Detroit!

This isn’t an entry into the heavy metal horror comedy fest - Detroit Rock City (1999) is missing the horror. Other than that it works pretty well.

The movie starts with four high school kids covering a KISS tune (badly) in a basement. They are

• James Bello, a long haired stoner (Jason Mewes type)
• Edward Furlong, tough kid (ala Michael J. Fox)
• Sam Huntington, the cute kid (like a blonde David Cassidy?)
• Giuseppe Andrews, a nice kid (sorry, I couldn’t identify his type)

It is 1978, and they are totally psyched to be going to see KISS in Detroit in two days. But Huntington’s mom (Lin Shane, Elise from Insidious!) finds and confiscates the tickets, because satanic. Then Bello manages to win tickets in a radio contest, and they are off to Detroit in a borrowed Volvo.

On the way, they pass some Guidos and Stellas (Italian-American disco fans) and get into an altercation. The Guidos bully them a little, then the kids turn on them and leave them by the side of the road. But Andrews gives one of the girls (Natasha Lyonne) a ride to Detroit (she’s going to Disco Inferno). Then the Volvo gets stolen.

Ok, so they get to the radio station and discover that stoner Bello hung up before he told the DJ his name, so there are no tickets. Now they need to take desperate measures. They split up and attempt to come up with tickets or money for a scalper.

To summarize:

• Furlong enters a ladies night amateur strip competition, MC’ed by Ron Jeremy. He has a lot to drink first and pukes before performing, but does an interesting, Jim Morrison style routine. He loses, of course, but cougar Shannon Tweed picks him up, rocks his world, and slips him a few hundred.
• Bello figures he’ll just mug a kid for a ticket, but the kid he picks has a huge big brother. He winds up owing the kid, and has to rob the convenience store. Instead, he foils someone else who’s trying to rob the convenience store, gets a reward and a kiss from the cute checkout girl.
• Andrews sneaks backstage, but gets thrown out the back. There, he finds the Volvo and Lyonne, being held for nefarious purposes. He saves her, and gets his reward.
• Huntington gets caught by his mom, who is part of a religious protest against KISS. She drags him to confession with father Joe Flaherty. But a girl from his class (Melanie Lynskey) sneaks into the confessional, and confesses she loves him, but is moving out of town. They get it on.

So our heroes all get some romance and some kind of reward. But do they make it to the concert? I don’t think you need a spoiler.

We are by no stretch of the imagination KISS fans, but this is a great movie. It’s full of the type of music you’d expect (KISS, Cheap Trick, Thin Lizzy, The Runaways). It’s full of funny scenes, and the kids are great. One thing I liked is that they are fundamentally OK. They never really think of skipping school or rebelling against authority - except Bello, he’s kind of a dick. When they meet the Guidos, it’s kind of obnoxious. But the disco guys bully them a lot before they even think of fighting back. And Lyonne gets to stand up for herself and the proposition that good music is good music, disco, metal or polka.

This was written and directed by Adam Rifkin, who has an odd resume, including writing Underdog and Mousehunt, but also Small Soldiers for Joe Dante. Recently, he wrote and directed The Last Movie Star, which may turn out to be Burt Reynolds final movie. An odd duck indeed.