Detroit Rock City (Film Review)

1999 New Line Cinema
Directed by: Adam Rifkin; Written by: Carl V. Dupré
Starring: Edward Furlong, Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Sam Huntington, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss, Natasha Lyonne, and Lin Shaye
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 94 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

It's the fall of 1978, and teenaged Hawk, Jam, Lex, and Trip have one goal: to see their favorite band, KISS, play in Detroit. Unfortunately, the world seems set against their goal. Jam's hyperconservative mother burns their concert tickets and ships Jam off to boarding school. Now they're down four tickets and one friend. Can the remaining trio rescue Jam and get more tickets? If the four reunite, can they even get to Detroit in the first place? If they do, can they even get to the show with tickets in hand? Or will they lose their minds in...Detroit Rock City?
I really enjoy the first half of 1999's Detroit Rock City. The 1978 suburban Cleveland setting is perfectly executed, the four young actors have great chemistry, and the lowbrow humor clicks on all cylinders. The soundtrack, featuring a lot of great 70s rock music, as well as some great covers of those songs enhances the fun atmosphere. I found myself quite invested in these four young idiots getting to Detroit. But then they get there...and the movie isn't even halfway over.
When it comes to Adam Rifkin's Detroit Rock City, viewers' mileage will vary, and mine is the 170 between Cleveland and Detroit. As soon as the four boys reach the titular city, they split up in search of cash and KISS tickets, and the movie loses steam. Together, these four are a fun crew, but apart, the juvenile stupidity of their adventures just isn't enough to carry the more than half of the film's runtime they occupy. To make matters worse, this large portion of the film was shot in nondescript Toronto, not Detroit, further sapping the character out of this massive section of the film. When the boys finally reunite, Detroit Rock City only has minutes of runtime remaining, and the four see their favorite band in a moment that essentially reduces the film to a KISS commercial (KISS Nation produced the film). Then the movie is over.
The quilt of 1999's cinematic legacy is knitted with nostalgia for the preceding decades, and Detroit Rock City is a part of that fabric. I really do enjoy its first half. I like Edward Furlong as Hawk about as much as I like him in any movie, and I also have a soft spot for Giuseppe Andrews' performance as the fumbling Lex. As the boys hit the road, autumn leaves swirling in the wind, 70s rock soundtrack hitting hard, the dopamine centers in my brain go overdrive. However, that second half on the Toronto streets sucks all the Detroit Rock City-provided joy out of my soul.