Jump to the good stuff: The Story | Some Thoughts | The Final Verdict
The Story:
Down Low is a comedy about an unlikely friendship between a middle aged closeted gay man and a young sex worker.
Gary (Zachary Quinto) hires a male prostitute, Cameron (Lukas Gage), for a message and a hand job. They have a disagreement over music choices, and Gary confesses that he’s never had sex with a man. Cameron is shocked by this and takes it upon himself to help Gary become a better gay man. He quickly signs Gary up on a dating app, Plungr, and scrolls through the list of local men. Without consulting with Gary, Cameron invites Sammy (Sebastian Arroyo) over to have sex with them.
Sammy arrives, and he and Cameron get into a fight that gets physical. When Gary interferes to keep Cameron from getting hurt, Sammy stumbles and falls out a plate glass window, landing on the front steps and cracking open his skull.
Cameron convinces Gary that they shouldn’t call the police, and the two decide to get rid of the body instead. And that is the basic plot.
Some Thoughts:
To be a comedy, a movie needs jokes and an amusing premise, Down Low has neither. It’s just a bunch of foul language, bad choices, and an uncomfortable situation.
Quinto and Gage have no chemistry, which doesn’t make their pairing believable. They also have no sense of comedy.
If there’s a way to make killing somebody funny–which I highly doubt–this is not it. And to make matters worse, instead of burying the body, Cameron goes on the dark web and finds a man, Buck (Simon Rex), to take the corpse.
Buck arrives complete with everything necessary to clean up a crime scene. Buck then starts smoking crack while Gary and Cameron clean things up, which makes this scenario even less amusing. And since this movie is full of bad choices, Gary and Cameron end up smoking crack with Buck.
The only portion of Down Low that could have been funny is when Gary’s drunken neighbor, Sandy (Judith Light) shows up. Even I thought this part might elicit a chuckle, but it doesn’t. The situation is handled so poorly that it strips away all comedic possibilities.
Somehow the illustrious Audra McDonald got roped into this slop as Gary’s ex-wife. Luckily, she only appears briefly.
The Final Verdict:
While the idea of a closeted middle-aged gay man befriending a young sex worker has comedic possibilities, Down Low takes it to a dark and uncomfortable place. There is nothing funny about this movie.
