A True Gutter Ball
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Kingpin, starring Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, and Bill Murray; directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly
Shameless vulgarity is such a point of pride with Kingpin, physical cruelty so much its bread and butter, that mere damnation can't destroy it. Yet one must try. Flush with the success of their last celebration of the feeble, Dumb and Dumber, directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly attempt something truly, authentically stupid this time: blending their no-holds-barred comic sensibility with a morality play. The resulting mixture is catastrophic, and its poisonous, putrid fumes choke off whatever healthy laughs Kingpin has to offer.
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The script, by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan, does show promise. When we first meet Roy Munson ( Woody Harrelson ), he appears destined for bowling greatness after winning the 1979 Odor Eaters Championship. The man he defeats, Ernie "Big Ern" McCracken ( Bill Murray ), gets his revenge on the naïve Roy by convincing him to help con a crew of rednecks, only to leave him high and dry when the locals realize they've been hustled by pros. They exact their revenge in a much more gruesome manner, grinding Roy's golden bowling hand to a pulp in the ball-return machine. Jump forward seventeen years to the present, where Roy is a broken-down drunk with a metal hook where his hand used to be, selling bowling supplies to earn a living. One day at an alley in Pennsylvania's Dutch Country, he spots an Amish man, Ishmael (Randy Quaid), throwing a continuous string of strikes. With slapstick tenacity (he pretends to be Amish himself), Roy convinces "Ish" to be his protégé at a million-dollar bowling tournament in Reno, Nevada. On the way, they collect a fellow hustler (Vanessa Angel), whose tight skirts make the dull scenes bearable. At the climax, Roy--prosthetic hand and all--recovers his confidence and enters the tournament for a rematch with the dreaded "Big Ern."
Kingpin holds the potential to spoof The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Natural, even Witness--four hallowed specimens ripe for replay as farce. Harrelson, Quaid, and Murray, three Zen comics, are equal to the centered lunacy of the task. Unfortunately, the Farrelly brothers--who seem unable to help themselves--obscure the brilliance of their stars behind an unbelievably thick inversion layer of mean-spirited gags. We're invited to laugh at infirmity, ugliness, and physical afflictions in people who have simply had the bad luck to be born. Roy's hook drives a number of unpleasant sight gags, too, but since he made the choices that caused it, at least he's fair game. Some gags succeed on the force of pure shock, but others--like the moment when Roy unshoes a horse by sawing off its hooves--only shock one into silence.
Bill Murray's astonishing flamboyance at the climax is an almost redemptive delight (his relationship to his flyaway, "comb-over" hair is a gag unto itself). The laughter he inspires is so welcome that it momentarily allows you to forget the horrors that preceded it. But then the movie ends, and all you can do is look back with revulsion. -- F.X. Feeney
(Rated PG-13 for language and sexual humor.)
Cast and Credit List
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