“Down Low” is a raunchy, dark comedy about Gary (Zachary Quinto), a divorced gay man, once stuck in a heterosexual marriage and fully repressed, who hires a young sex worker Kory/Cameron (Lukas Gage) to give him a happy ending massage, and this results in a rollercoaster ride of a night for the two.

While “servicing” Gary, Kory/Cameron discovers that Gary, who came out to his family, has repressed his sexuality and has never had a sexual encounter with a man. The two become fast friends and Cameron tries to help Gary hook up with an internet stranger, as a gay man’s rite of passage. The two are able to lure “Looking2Succ” (Sebastian Arroyo), a closeted man, to Gary’s house for a hook-up. Things do not go the way they planned and Looking2Succ ends up “dead”, and the two must find a way to get rid of the body. A series of high jinks ensue, as Gary’s drugged up neighbor Sandy (Judith Light) comes to check up on Gary and comes across Looking2Succ’s body. Gary and Cameron go back to the internet (where their problems started) to find another person to help them get rid of the body and find Buck (Simon Rex), an internet pervert who likes to have sex with dead bodies. Buck helps Cameron and Gary clean up the crime scene, does crack with them, tries to steal from Gary and worsens their situation in a comically absurd way.

During Gary and Cameron’s heart to heart talks, Gary confesses that he is dying, and has less than a month to live. Gary lies about the reason why he is estranged from his family, saying they want nothing to do with him, however, Sandy tells Cameron the truth, that although his family did not take his coming out well initially, they have tried to reach out to Gary, but Gary has not been forthcoming. The movie, as a dark comedy, does try to tackle serious issues, such as loneliness, the grief and anger that comes with having your life and choices taken away from you, the issue of mortality. The way some subjects are tackled in the movie, based on the overall atmosphere, may not completely work, but the movie is what it is.

Cameron encourages Gary to reach out to his family in his last month and Gary does so, although it becomes clear at his funeral that he was not completely open to them about his wishes. Cameron attends Gary’s funeral and confronts his wife Patty (Audra McDonald) about the funeral they are throwing for Gary and how Patty never really knew Gary. The confrontation between Patty and Gary is one of those scenes in the movie that doesn’t quite belong to or would have been more effective had we actually seen Patty and Gary interact with each other and seen their domestic life. The scene meant a great deal, but was misplaced in this movie.

The whole third act of the movie is jagged. The movie tries to have it both ways, being comedic, raunchy, tasteless and also being profound and sincere, but it somehow misses the mark on this in the third act and takes the absurdity to greater nonsensical heights. Cameron steals Gary’s corpse from the funeral in order to give him his “dream” burial in the lake with his dead dog. Although this seemingly honors Gary’s wishes, it undercuts the whole heart to heart confrontation between Cameron and Patty, and they go for a laugh instead of grounding the movie in sincerity, which would have worked better in my opinion.

The relationship between Cameron and Gary did not need to go beyond the transactional hand job, I found that their chemistry was better served as platonic unhinged friends, however, them eventually having sex was a consolation price for Gary who needed to break out of his shell. I do always appreciate it when gay sex doesn’t actually need to be given any profound meaning and they can just participate in debauchery, just as any heterosexual raunchy movies are portrayed on the mainstream without any insidious undertones.

“Down Low” is an average funny and fun movie. There is something bland about the comedy, in a Billy Eichner way, but the cast takes it from a 5 to a 6.5 with their good acting. The first 2 acts are funny and entertaining, but the 3rd act is a bit of a letdown. If you like to see unhinged white gays doing unhinged white people’s things, this is the movie for you.

Rating- 3 out of 5

Streaming on- Prime Video/Apple TV