Detroit Rock City

(New Line)

Adam Rifkin's 1970s-set film opens with an uptight, chainsmoking mom finding a Kiss record -- Love Gun -- in her Donny and Marie album jacket while down the street her stoned son belts out "Shout It Out Loud" with the neighborhood Kiss cover band. That's as good as it gets. No one involved, except perhaps the members of Kiss themselves, seems to have taken this project too seriously -- wouldn't a simple Kiss concert film have made a lot more sense?