November 24, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Isaiah Lester and Yassir Lester
Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, the comedy film “The Gutter” features a racially diverse cast of characters (African American, white, Latin and Asian) representing the working-class and the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A down-on-his-luck man with extraordinary bowling skills teams up with an ex-champion bowler as his coach to enter bowling tournaments so they can raise enough money to save the bowling alley where he works, but he comes up against a formidable longtime bowling champion who has recently come out of retirement.
Culture Audience: “The Gutter” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and tacky and mindless comedies where almost all of the main characters are irritating.
“The Gutter” is an apt way to describe this trashy and stupid comedy about obnoxious people involved in bowling tournaments. The racist jokes aren’t funny at all and shouldn’t be excused just because African American filmmakers put these jokes in the movie. This is the type of garbage movie that thinks it’s hilarious that the black protagonist gives himself the nickname Nygga Time when he enters bowling tournaments, with “Nygga” pronounced exactly like you think it’s pronounced.
Isaiah Lester and Yassir Lester (who are brothers) directed this moronic film, which was written by Yassir Lester. “The Gutter” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival and later screened at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival. There’s no explanation for why this bottom-of-the-barrel crappy movie ended up at these two major film festivals except that the filmmakers have great connections.
“The Gutter” is not only filled with idiotic dialogue but it’s also very boring and repetitive. The movie is an onslaught of terrible writing, with the cast members not doing much to elevate the material. “The Gutter” begins with main character Walt (played by Shameik Moore), who is an unlikable dolt, applying for a job at AlleyCatz Bowling Alley, which is in an unnamed U.S. city. This loathsome movie has a weird fixation on calling Walt the “n” word, because a caption in the beginning of the movie describes him as “That Ni*ga.”
Walt is interviewed by AlleyCatz Bowling Alley owner Mozell Lester (played by Jackée Harry), who takes one look at Walt’s résumé and tells him: “Let me be honest with you. Your résumé is trash. You really shouldn’t list on here why you got fired from these jobs.” The movie then shows an unfunny flashback montage to Walt’s previous jobs where he got fired.
As a line cook at an Italian restaurant, Walt described bread sticks as “dildos.” As a sales associate at an electronics store, he insulted two lesbian spouses and their son, who were customers, by calling the boy a “lesbian kid.” Walt proves that he’s still an insipid creep by sexually harassing Mozell during the interview. Because this movie is a dumpster train wreck, Mozell hires him anyway to be a bartender at AlleyCatz Bowling Alley.
“The Gutter” gets worse. There’s a running gag that Walt doesn’t like to wear shirts on the job because it will save him money from doing laundry. And so, there are several scenes of shirtless Walt looking like a “Magic Mike” reject.
How “poor” is Walt? There’s an awful scene showing Walt arriving at his home, where he lives with his mother Vicki (played by Kim Fields), who plays a prank on him by pretending they got their electricity cut off for not paying their ulility bills. When she reveals it’s all a prank, Vicki cackles, “Being poor is fun.”
A customer who is constantly at the AlleyCatz Bowling Alley bar is a former professional bowler named Skunk (played by D’Arcy Carden), an admitted alcoholic, who “gets drunk here every day,” according to Mozell. Skunk is a whiny and sarcastic pessimist, who talks in a deadpan voice. Walt and Skunk immediately clash with each other, which means they’re going to be stuck with each other for most of this terrible and unimaginative movie.
“The Gutter” has poorly written scenes that serve no purpose but to have someone say something vapid and aggravating, but the filmmakers probably think it’s clever and edgy. For example, an employee who works at the bowling alley named Brotha Candy (played by Rell Battle) is shown standing outside the bowling alley with a megaphone shouting: “White people come from monkeys! That’s why their nipples are pink!” If you think this is hilarious, then “The Gutter” is the movie for you.
One day, an unnamed city building inspector (played by Adam Brody) shows up and delivers some bad news to Mozell: The AlleyCatz Bowling Alley has all types of building code violations. It will cost about $200,000 to clear up all of these violations. And she has a limited time to get the money, or else AlleyCatz Bowling Alley will be shut down.
Mozell doesn’t have the money, of course. And what a coincidence: Around this time, Walt finds out that he has extraordinary talent in bowling. He then comes up with an idea to enter bowling tournaments so that he can win enough money to save AlleyCatz Bowling Alley. Walt enlists a reluctant Skunk to be his bowling coach.
And so, Walt and Skunk go on a cross-country tour of bowling tournaments. Most of their stops are in the Midwest and South (in cities such as Indianapolis, Tulsa, and Houston), only so “The Gutter” can have ridiculous caricatures of backwards “redneck” people who are shocked that someone who looks like Walt is so good at bowling. The movie over-uses a not-funny-at-all gag that when Walt wins a tournament, he throws a hissy fit if he doesn’t get an oversized cardboard check.
Another unfunny gag that goes nowhere: Pornhub becomes a sponsor to Walt during these tournaments, so Walt plasters Pornhub stickers all over his shirtless chest and back. A TV journalist named Angelo (played by Paul Reiser) notices Walt’s bowling skills and tags along on this tour to report on this potential new bowling star. And a weird and arrogant bowler named Crantley Jr. (played by Paul Scheer) becomes Walt’s rival.
However, Walt’s biggest competition ends up being ruthless Linda Curson (played by Susan Sarandon), a former world champion bowler, who comes out of retirement when she hears how well Walt is doing on the bowling circuit. Linda is the type of bowler who chain smokes while she’s bowling, which is supposed to be the movie’s way of showing that she can do whatever she wants in places where indoor smoking is not allowed. It’s eventually revealed that Skunk has a huge grudge against Linda and a secret connection to Linda.
You know where all of this is going, of course. It’s excruciating to get there because “The Gutter” has so many scenes that are just irksome because of all the horrible dialogue and repellant characters. The bowling scenes have no suspense or real excitement.
Sarandon looks like she’s trying to have as much fun as she can with her role as mean-spirited and vengeful Linda. Carden’s understated approach to her jaded Skunk character is so off-kilter in comparison to Moore’s try-hard approach to over-the-top Walt, it’s almost painful to watch these two characters in scenes together. The other characters in the movie don’t have enough screen time to have any real meaning to this limp story.
“The Gutter” isn’t one of those movies where it’s amusing or entertaining to watch mismatched characters thrown together in circumstances they could not predict. It’s just a parade of sloppy filmmaking, cringeworthy dialogue and a very lazy ending. By the end of “The Gutter,” you won’t care to see any of these repulsive characters ever again.
Magnolia Pictures released “The Gutter” in select U.S. cinemas and on digital and VOD on November 1, 2024.