KINGPIN (1996) **1/2 Bill Murray is absolutely brilliant, and one man denunciation of, and satire on, everything wrong in the history of the world. As a pro bowler, no less! Ah, the great ones, they need nothing, and give us everything. I haunted bowling alleys as a teenager, and I assure you without qualification that Bill's mockery of celebrity bowlers, great and small, is spot on. I only regret to add that one of the people that he's making fun of is myself. In our defense, there is much, ok something, to be said for taking pride in your achievements, however minimal they may appear to the uninitiated. The danger, for the film, is that Bill only appears towards the beginning and end, which leaves the middle. Fortunately Woody Harrelson is so charming as a loser throwing away lines about drinking that we're willing to let all of the Farrelly brothers' jokes, permeating the script like loose bowel movements, go by without much notice. Randy Quaid is doofy even for a doofus, but the brothers have taken out insurance against this in the form of Vanessa Angel. Whether she assists the film in any manner to be studied in detail by aspiring thespians at the finer schools is a question unworthy of being asked (so glad I did, in the spirit of the thing), but I'm more than willing to believe that she could prevail over a cattle call of would-be supermodels for a Levis commercial. Still and all, this is a film about bowling, and loyalty and redemption; so it makes perfect sense to conclude things with Blues Traveller rocking a field of Amish.
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