The Gutter Review: LFF 2024

Some familiar sitcom stars appear in absurd bowling comedy The Gutter

Walt (Shameik Moore, the voice of Miles Morales in Sony’s Spider-verse movies) is a perennial screw up, fired from job after job due to his ridiculous and crude behaviour. After getting a job that’s finally working out at the Alleycatz bowling alley, he strikes up a friendship with retired professional bowler turned habitual drunk, Skunk (The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden.)

To the surprise of everyone including himself, Walt turns out to be an incredible bowler, which comes in handy when a sudden influx of cash is needed to save Alleycatz from closure. With Skunk serving as his coach Walt sets out on a road trip across America, competing in bowling tournaments, collecting prize money, and making a name for himself as one of the first black pro bowling champions. Walt’s success soon catches the eye of the nations greatest ever bowler Linda Curson (a surprisingly cast Susan Sarandon) – who emerges to stop Walt from breaking her all-time record.

Given that there’s already two very good comedies about bowling, the cult classic Kingpin and the universally regarded Big Lebowski – how does The Gutter fare when stepping into those borrowed, slippery shoes? It’s really not a patch on either to be honest, though it’s a very different sort of humour – more akin to Dumb and Dumber than either of the aforementioned films.

Moore plays Walt as a chaotic, nonsensical, provocative figure that’s more than a little reminiscent of the Tracey Jordan character on 30 Rock – right down to the aversion to wearing a shirt. While Carden has proven comedy chops she feels miscast here – far too upright and put together to be playing the sloppy drunk character. Susan Sarandon is at least having a good time, chain smoking cigarettes and sexually harassing semi clad young men – though being the sneering evil queen figure isn’t exactly a departure from some of her more recent roles.

The Gutter’s jokes come thick and fast, with every other line seeming to be a punchline, but only a handful of them actually land. It makes sense when you consider that writing and directing duo Yassir and Isaiah Lester come from a background of writing for sitcoms, adult animation and late-night talk shows. What The Gutter really needed was a full writer’s room or about a half dozen more script revisions to mine out the genuinely brilliant one liners from the other 80 minutes or so of dross.

I love an obscure sports comedy, really, I do. Dodgeball is one of my most rewatched movies of all time. Blades of Glory is the hidden gem in Will Ferrell’s comedy crown. So, it’s really disappointing that The Gutter just doesn’t land when it has the cast (including some brilliant cameos from sitcom stars) and the premise to be a strike. Playing at London Film Festival The Gutter had a significant number of walkouts from the sparsely populated screening I attended. Maybe one to check out risk free when it hits streaming; the few successful lines don’t save it from being painfully unfunny.

The Gutter is playing at the BFI London Film Festival 2024. Wider UK distribution details have yet to be confirmed