Walk of Shame (film)

Plot

Meghan Miles (Banks) is a field reporter for KZLA6, a Los Angeles-based news station. She has a pristine public image, though she has the odd misfortune of provoking the aggression of any cat she’s near. After she’s rejected for an anchor position with a network news program in favor of a Bay Area reporter with an Asian last name, she laments the news while mourning the departure of her boyfriend Kyle.

Having made prior plans with her friends Rose (Jacobs) and Denise (Wright) to go clubbing, she agrees to keep their plans in hopes that it will help her feel better about her situation. She ends up highly intoxicated after several shots of liquor and many more drinks thereafter when she and her friends are invited to join a group of men in a booth. When one of the men invites her to leave with him, she instead leaves on her own, only to be trapped on a fire escape when she exits through a one-way door. She’s rescued by Gordon (Marsden), a part-time bartender at the club and a romantic fiction writer. Meghan ends up going home with Gordon where they play several drinking games so Gordon can get equally as drunk as Meghan, she awakens later in bed with Gordon wearing only her undergarments.

After a confrontation with Gordon’s cat, Meghan slips out of his apartment with only her keys and the clothes on her back (including a yellow dress that she borrowed from Denise), and witnesses her car being towed away with her purse inside. Looking for a way home, she startles a sleeping taxi driver who mistakes her request to take her to the impound lot as directions to a strip club. Having no money, the driver demands lap dances as payment and Meghan runs off. She ends up at The Point where Officers Dave (Suplee) and Walter (Burr) interpret her flagging down cars for help as solicitation, and issue her a warning, though they fail to listen to her and render assistance.

Meghan continues on where she encounters a crack dealer named Skrilla (Gilliard Jr.) whom she chases back to his crack house when police officers ambush them on the street corner. At the crack house, she meets Skrilla’s friends Hulk (McDonald) and Pookie (McAuley) who offer her one of their phones to call for help, unfortunately she cannot remember anyone’s number except her own, her parent's and Kyle's. Desperate, she phones Kyle for help, but he angrily rejects her, with Meghan discovering during the call that he's already with someone else. When a rival gang attacks the crack house, Pookie escorts Meghan out through a drain pipe and they make a run for it. Before parting ways, Pookie gives her $10 worth of crack that she can hopefully sell or trade for the cash she needs to get home.

After attempting to peddle the crack to a rival dealer (Callen), she escapes on a city bus and manages to travel several blocks without paying the fare before the bus driver sprays mace in Meghan’s eyes and ejects her from the bus.

After flushing her eyes out from a spigot, she steals a teenager’s bicycle from the public library and heads towards the freeway until Officers Dave and Walter along with the bike owner track her down. She slips into an Asian massage parlor to evade the police and pretends to be a masseuse, incidentally giving a massage to the cabbie from earlier that night. She eludes the police and, stealing a pair of shoes, she sprints all the way to Interstate 10, where she crosses just as the traffic returns after an interruption from road construction.

She makes it to the impound lot, only to be denied by the clerk. Sneaking into the gate behind a tow truck, she gets into her car only to find that her purse has been stolen. Distraught, she steals her own vehicle but fails to make it out of the lot when the spike strips blow out all four of her tires, and the gate shuts, wedging her vehicle.

Gordon, Rose and Denise arrive in time, giving her a ride back to the station. However, the “Carpocalypse”, previously reported on by Meghan for causing massive traffic congestion on LA freeways, stops their journey short. Meghan calls KZLA’s traffic reporter who arrives in his helicopter to pick her up and deliver her to the station.

She arrives in time to go on air, only to find out she’s reporting on her own escapades from the night before. Deciding to set the record straight, she clarifies on all of the misunderstandings and stands up for her actions. Ironically, the network executives appreciated what they saw and pitch a reality show to her which she holds out on and departs with Gordon. Meanwhile, federal agents raid Kyle's apartment after his phone number is connected to a drug ring; Meghan and Gordon walk home together.

Cast

Reception

Walk of Shame received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a rating of 12%, based on 25 reviews, with the consensus reading: "Incoherent, unfunny, and borderline misogynistic, Walk of Shame lives up to its title for filmgoers entering and leaving the theater". On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 25 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".