Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Kingpin Blu-ray Movie Review

Don't mark this one "zero."

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 10, 2014

Sports comedies are about a dime a dozen, but it's not often one of them strikes out from the pack to focus on something other than one of the four majors: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Sure, there's the random Happy Gilmore and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, but for the most part it's slick jocks, not oily lanes; jokers in the dugout, not turkeys, and bench players, not spares. The Farrelly Brothers' (There's Something About Mary) Kingpin ditches the hardwood for, well, uh, the hardwood, not the 94-foot by 50-foot area that basketball players call home but instead the 60 or so foot bowling lane (or about the same distance as the pitcher's mound to home plate in baseball) on which players roll a ball and knock over some pins. Sounds easy, right? How about doing it with a rubber hand, with a taunting opponent, on national television, and with a million dollars at stake? That's the big picture gist of Kingpin, the best bowling movie this side of The Big Lebowski and one of the funniest, most quotable, best made Sports Comedies out there.

Disheveled.

Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) was born to bowl. His father taught him the game at a young age and promised him a great life if he applied his bowling skills to his other endeavors. In young adulthood, Roy wins the Iowa amateur championship and goes pro. His main rival is another up-and-coming bowler by the name of Ernie McCracken (Bill Murray) who takes Roy under his wing and turns him not into a skilled pro bowler but rather a talented hustler. Unfortunately, one hustle goes terribly wrong. Roy's angry opponents take his hand and his ability to bowl. Years later, he's washed up, barely scraping by and working as a bowling supply salesman and still working small hustles on the side, just not on the bowling lanes. While pitching his wares at the local lanes, he stumbles upon Ishamel (call him Randy Quaid), an Amish farmer who happens to be a pretty decent bowler. As Ernie did with Roy, Roy takes Ishmael as his own bowling prodigy, building him into an accomplished hustler. As they make their way to a national championship in Reno, Nevada, they will encounter a number of people who would hold them back and do them harm but also pick up a lovely lady by the name of Claudia (Vanessa Angel) en route towards their destiny.

Kingpin is, in a word, "fun." The movie finds the perfect operating balance between drama and humor, offering each up in equal parts towards the sum of a singularly great little movie about life's ups and downs as they're shaped by a relatively heavy ball rolling down an oily lane. It's about fate and destiny, in many ways, but it's also about the laughs. Within a fairly interesting human interest core story is a film packed with verbal and visual humor. Balding, for whatever reason, seems a major source of fun for the filmmakers, as bad comb overs frequently become frazzled as tensions mount on the lanes and in life. But the movie has so much more to offer than a few hair gags. The humor is even and consistent, a little bit of it over the top but not enough to weigh the movie down with forced gags and anything that's in too poor taste for a movie of this sort. There's an even playing field for all variety of humor, from laughs on the lane to sexual innuendo, from lifestyle choices to road trip shenanigans, from strip club mishaps to basic naiveté about how the world works and why. That the film can generate so much humor, and maintain such a tight narrative flow even as it traverses a number of styles -- including random bowling sequences, road trip elements, dangerous wagers, the Amish lifestyle, and the big bowling showdown at the end -- is a testament to the writing prowess of Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan, the Farrelly's keen sense of pace and plot, and the performers' sharp understanding of character, situation, and the film's dramatic and humorous centers.

Indeed, the performances truly shape Kingpin into a classic. Each primary and every secondary is great, from Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid all the way down to Richard Tyson and Lin Shaye in supportive performances. Harrelson shines in the lead. He's equally good in style and swagger before his mishap and sluggish and slovenly after. He rides the character's ebbs and flows gracefully but humorously, finding that center that's equally comedic and dramatic and exuding a true sense of understanding about who the character is, where the character goes, what the character has experienced, and what the character still has to offer to himself, to others, and to the audience. Quaid, who in some ways -- particularly in his physical performance -- channels Jeff Daniels from Dumb & Dumber, doesn't fade into the background but never quite seems to match Harrelson stride-for-stride, playing, in a way, Raymond to Woody's Charlie but never with that same sort of front-and-center screen presence of a character who, by way of being less than the other, is in many ways more. Of course, it's an entirely different sort of film, but the same basic "buddy" principles remain. Bill Murray, however, absolutely steals the show, as he always does, as a worshiped pro bowler who is not only the bane of Harrelson's existence but who manages to find public favor even with his obvious arrogance and womanizing ways, mastering the art of the façade and fooling everyone -- including himself, sometimes -- but Harrelson and the audience.

Kingpin Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kingpin sports a high quality 1080p transfer. Image definition is strong. The transfer provides a handsome film-ike texture, defined in part by a fairly light but consistent grain structure that accentuates positive details across the board, including faces, clothing lines, hat textures, bowling ball accents, wooden surfaces, and all variety of imagery that looks consistently great with this high definition transfer. Colors are satisfactorily even and well defined. The picture isn't so richly colored as to redefine what Blu-ray can produce, but there's a consistency of shading and visual delivery that allows every hue to stand apart with impressive accuracy, from clothes to vegetation, from bowling balls to hardwood surfaces. Black levels never waver too far from natural and flesh tones appear accurate. There are a few occurrences of unsightly edge halos, particularly around Ishmael's black hat against a bright sky in one scene, but such are relatively few and far between. Otherwise, this is a rock-solid, good-looking effort from Paramount.

Kingpin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kingpin rolls onto Blu-ray with an adequate, but not particularly noteworthy, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The track satisfies core requirements but never really excels beyond. Music is fairly spaced, suitably clear, and enjoys a bit of surround support. Yet it's not powerfully or otherwise dynamically delivered, favoring a stymied, slightly stuffy stage presence, whether opening title music, the I Want Candy montage, or any other musical example in the film. Light supportive effects, such as applause, crashing bowling pins, and other assorted sonic goodies are likewise presented with base proficiency but nothing more. Dialogue delivery is clear and center-focused, save for the track's best example of imaging and spacing, which comes during a public address announcement prior to the kickoff of the bowling championship at the beginning of the film's third act.

Kingpin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Kingpin contains a commentary, a retrospective directors feature, and a trailer.

• Audio Commentary (extended version only): Peter and Bobby Farrelly deliver an evenly spoken and interesting track. It covers a wide variety of information, including editing, casting and performances, filming locations, visual effects specifics, deleted scenes, the brothers' comedic style and approach to genre moviemaking, shooting secrets and tales from the set, and more. Fans will enjoy this track.
• Kingpins: Extra Frames with The Farrelly Brothers (1080p, 19:14): The directors reminisce about the film, discussing the script, the film's style, the process of following up on Dumb & Dumber, casting and performances, the picture's failure to meet financial expectations, its explosion in popularity on video, 90s Comedy style, their evolution as filmmakers, the tone on their sets, real life bowling skills, the picture's place in popular culture, and more.
• Kingpin Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 1:27).

Kingpin Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kingpin is one of the funniest films of the 1990s and easily one of the Farrelly Brothers' best and most accessible pictures. It balances a number of elements -- the underdog Sports film, the Comedy, the Road Trip movie, the Human Interest Drama, even the Romance -- and shapes it all into something special with terrific performances, endlessly quotable lines, and high replay value. It's nearly the perfect Comedy and one that should find its way into every Blu-ray collection. Paramount has made a purchase an easy choice with a rock-solid 1080p transfer, adequate lossless audio, and a few quality supplements. Highly recommended.