Finally, a Good Bowling Comedy: The Gutter Review

Comedy is all about timing. Consider Norm MacDonald's slow, almost sadistic moth joke delivered on the set of Conan. Or take the short and sweet one-off Mitch Hedberg joke, "I like the FedEx guy 'cause he's a drug dealer and he don't even know it." Comedy is not about just being a funny person and existing in the world. No offense to those surviving members of the Upright Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings, but most people can't just riff aimlessly in a space and hold an audience's attention forever.

Unfortunately, most comedy movies of the last decade or so have taken this tack. Modern comedies are littered with torturous, drawn-out scenes where funny people have too much free reign to clean their brains out of anything even resembling a joke. Take a moment to ignore how poorly the comedy in question has aged: Why is there a scene like "You know how I know you're gay?" from The 40-Year Old Virgin in nearly every mainstream comedy released since Obama's election? It’s starting to feel like asking too much to get a solid script foundation and editing ruthless enough to only keep the very best improv joke on-screen.

But like a perfect game bowled by the stranger in the lane next to you, it turns out incredible things are possible—someone figures out how to play the game right. The Gutter, directed by brothers Isaiah and Yassir Lester, is the comedy we've been waiting for. The film follows Walt (Shameik Moore), a beautifully dumb himbo who finally scores a job at AlleyCatz, the local bowling alley, despite writing his resume partly in Wingdings. After he meets retired/failed professional bowler and current bar lush Skunk (a dirtbag-y D'Arcy Carden), Walt discovers a talent for bowling and a mission to keep AlleyCatz open with his tournament winnings.

It's not an original story by any means—it's almost explicitly a "we have to save the local community center" underdog rags-to-riches story, but there's a freshness to how quickly the Lesters move through that opening exposition. You, the audience, know what the movie is going to be about after having seen a trailer, heard the plot, or at least skimmed the Fandango description before buying a ticket. So why waste time building to the inevitable revelation that Walt has talent, Skunk has failed dreams, and they both need a reason to pursue professional bowling? That's time wasted when you could be telling jokes.

And the jokes are very, very good. But more than that, the jokes are frequent—audience laughter drowned out the very next joke multiple times, and in the Q&A following the premiere  Susan Sarandon (who plays a legendary bowler lured out of retirement to crush Walt's dreams) even lightly criticized us for laughing too hard and drowning out her favorite jokes. It's a valuable gift to have a comedy so joke-dense that it's difficult to even remember some of my favorite gags in the film.

While the comedic bonafides of The Gutter's cast seem like an easy head start to making a classic comedy (when has D'Arcy Carden not killed?), it's abundantly clear that they had a strong script to start from. Yassir Lester, who wrote the film in addition to co-directing, keeps the pacing light and the jokes rapid-fire. This is a very funny movie starring funny people with snappy pacing and an emotional core that sneaks up on you. And when the actors do get time to riff, the editing is sharp enough to cut away the moment it starts to sag. For the occasional joke that doesn't pop, there's an immediate cut to a new bit with a different rhythm. Like an action movie keeping up the adrenaline, you barely have time to breathe between jokes.

But the very best thing about The Gutter is that it actually looks like a movie. This doesn’t have the flat high-key lighting and dull composition of a multi-camera sitcom. After the film, the Lesters emphasized that their goal was to create a good-looking comedy with cinematography that looked "like a real movie." Their aesthetic touchstones were Paul Thomas Anderson movies like Punch-Drunk Love and Boogie Nights, and The Gutter definitely measures up. Costuming and set design play a huge role in the film and help the comedy hit harder. Walt and Skunk show up to each bowling tourney with absurdly specific costumes. Whether it's an astronaut suit for Houston or a 50 Cent bulletproof vest outfit for New York, each costume works as an instantly visual gag while also, absurd as it may be, emphasizing Walt's personality and his and Skunk's friendship. 

The characters feed the comedy, the comedy feeds the story, and the movie actually looks like a real movie. What more could you ask for? After years of comedies that couldn't hit a 7-10 split with multiple balls and the bumpers up, it's absolutely thrilling to watch fresh filmmakers bowl strike after strike.