Gummo

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

What 23-year-old Korine, the writer of Kids, intended with Gummo is not exactly clear. What he has created is no more obvious. (Though the New York Times's Janet Maslin has an idea: “The worst film of the year.”) There's no narrative, the pacing is out of whack and the shock factor is way up there. Let's chalk it up to a complacent Gen-Xer trying too hard to be coolly detached from the world in which he's found some respect and success. The film follows the exploits of two boys (Reynolds and Sutton) from the white trash town of Xenia, Ohio, who kill cats and sell them to a Chinese restaurant. Many of the scenes are downright offensive, with targets that include homosexuals, blacks, dwarfs and retarded people. In the end, Korine is likely to piss off a lot of people with Gummo. What he may gain remains to be seen, but it doesn't seem like much.