Kingpin

with Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, Bill Murray
Written by Mort Nathan and Barry Fanaro
Directed by Peter and David Farrelly
(MGM/UA,1996)
by William Ham

Reviled by some, praised wildly by others, Kingpin is but the latest manifestation of the so-stupid-it’s-smart lowbrow gag-film, that venerable tradition inaugurated by National Lampoon’s Animal House nearly two decades ago. You can’t go wrong in this genre if the film follows the strictures laid down by that epic: 1) a simple underdog-versus-asshole plot, 2) at least one vomit scene, 3) a mixture of jokes regarding as many other bodily fluids as possible, 4) the knowledge that getting hit in the balls is always funny, 5) an unhealthy breast fixation, and 6) at least one former Saturday Night Live cast member (Lorne Michaels’ regime preferred). Kingpin covers all the bases properly: 1) a disgraced former white-trash bowling champ faces his nemesis; 2) the lead character regurges after being forced to service his nicotine-yellowed landlady; 3) the lead character drinks, ah, bulls’ milk; 4) I swear to God at least one-third of the jokes involve testicular pummeling; 5) Vanessa Angel. ‘Nuff said; and 6) not one but three ex-SNLers, Bill Murray (from the show’s golden age), Randy Quaid (from the show’s dark, sure-Anthony-Michael-Hall’s-funny age), and a cameo by Chris Elliott (from the show’s even darker, God-I-miss-Anthony-Michael-Hall age). So far, so good, and they manage to squeeze in running gags about deformity (hooks are a hoot), the Amish (they churn butter!), and pointless rock-star appearances (you know, for kids). As these films go, Kingpin is pretty good – there’s enough silly/sick sight gags and bad hair to keep the laughs coming at a steady pace – and yet I was disappointed. Not ’cause I’m one of those comedy snobs who won’t find a movie funny unless there’s at least one gratuitous reference to Kierkegaard in it (those double-“a”s do get me every time, though), but ’cause Kingpin makes the same tactical error that sinks even the funnier John Hughes pictures – it tries to have it both ways, having every character betray, insult, and assault one another for most of the running time, then dissolving into a soppy, unearned mass hug at the end. I have more respect for comedies that have the strength of their convictions – Beavis and Butthead, Seinfeld, and even the Farrellys’ previous opus duh, Dumb and Dumber, are much braver in that the shallow, venal characters that inhabit them wind up in exactly the same place that they started, no life lessons learned, no emotional buttons pushed, in a practically Beckettian cycle of stasis and frustration that rings much truer. Kingpin does have some fun with the conventions of the on-the-road-to-redemption cine-axis (The Color of Money, Rain Man), but unlike Airplane! and its progeny, it breaks faith and shoots for the same emotional payoff that they’d be better off mocking. A shame, too, since Woody Harrelson’s good-hearted-but-dim persona and Quaid’s masterful naïf are almost enough to pull it off, and Murray mines the malevolent-jerk territory he carved out for himself in the way-underrated Scrooged to vintage effect. A little more moxie and Kingpin coulda been a lowbrow laff classic – it’s no gutter ball, but it doesn’t quite make that 7-10 split. Dug the floss gag, though.