KINGPIN
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
**1/2
Inane. Vulgar. Cheap. And sometimes very funny. Those are my main impressions on KINGPIN, the comedy that turns the pathetic, bloated world of bowling upside down. How do I know bowling is bloated and pathetic? Because it's the only sport I'm good at. And it's the only sport any of the loser characters in KINGPIN can claim talent in.
First there's Woody Harrelson, the scatterbrained bowler who beats Bill Murray in the state championship. Murray lures naive Woody into participating in a bowling hustle with him, then ditches him there when the drunken bowlers want revenge. It's not clear exactly what they do to Harrelson, but he alternates between a hook and rubber hand on his right arm as a souvenir of that fateful night. He spends the next seventeen years drinking and pulling small-time hustles to earn money when he finds a new prospect.
That's Randy Quaid, an Amish farmboy who sneaks off to the bowling alley and sports a 270 average (per fifteen frames, we later find out), whom Harrelson sees as his chance to win the million-dollar bowling tournament in Reno. But Quaid won't go until Harrelson wears him down by infiltrating the Amish community under the name Hezekiah. Quaid finally goes with him on the cross-country drive, which includes another bowling hustle to keep the cash flow up, after which they flee with the victim's girlfriend en tow.
And that would be Vanessa Angel, USA's "Weird Science" babe, whose two requirements in the movie are to wear a lot of tight outfits and quarrel with Harrelson, the first of which she does very well. Angel is the only beauty in a very ugly movie, both visually and metaphorically. Besides having an overall grimy look, Harrelson and Murray both have some of the most absurdly- dated wardrobes and disgusting hair in movie history.
Metaphorically speaking, KINGPIN has a lot of repulsive moments. Cheap sexual innuendoes abound, along with some sickening visual gags, the most disgusting of which has Harrelson, during the Brother Hezekiah sequence, telling a farmer he milked their cow. He has a milk moustache and tells the farmer it took some priming the pump but he finally got it flowing, after which the farmer replies, "We don't have a cow, only a bull." Harrelson gets a disgusted look on his face and says he's going to brush his teeth. The movie is full of disgusting moments like that, split about half-and-half between funny and awful.
KINGPIN is an uneven movie but has a lot of positives going for it. The cast shows a talent for comedy, and Bill Murray is especially funny here for the first time since GROUNDHOG DAY. Angel, besides being an indisputable beauty, can act. The Farrely brothers, who directed KINGPIN, have a talent for cheap humor that is actually funny, making this an appropriate follow-up to DUMB AND DUMBER. If the movie hadn't been so long and loaded with misfired gags, it would have been a good movie to seek out. Right now it's worth watching but not worth arranging your schedule around.
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