Over and over people recommend this movie to me. It was assigned to me, so I finally gave it a second look. It's like I remember. I think the problem for me is the casting of Harrelson/Quaid. If you take away the rubber hand and Amish jokes...they have nothing that really works with these characters. Murray brings the goods, but despite Quaid and Harrelson being good in other work, this just doesn't catch for me. Such a shame.

From the Farrelly brothers comes the screwball comedy Kingpin. The story follows a washed up pro bowler named Roy Munson who trains an up-and-coming Amish bowler named Ishmael for the Reno championship so that Ishmael can save his family’s farm. Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Vanessa Angel lead the cast, but it’s Bill Murray who steals the show. Murray brings a lot of charisma to the film with his arrogant, showboating hustler character Ernie McCracken; owning nearly every scene he’s in. However, as a Farrelly brothers film it tends to push boundaries and use edgy sexual humor; which is often crude and vulgar. So, while Kingpin is a lot of fun, the comedy is really hit-and-miss (especially in the extended edition).

It’s interesting because I think mid-90s Hollywood comedies have broadly held up better than the mid-00s ones, most of which you can’t watch anymore without at least one moment where it’s like having a bucket of cold water thrown in your face. This has a few of those, I won’t pretend otherwise, but fewer than you’d think. The crass stuff is just a bit too crass, and there are one or two moments where the joke is essentially just ‘Vanessa Angel is fit’ which: fine, she is, but that’s not really a joke is it. That said: the bit where he takes the shoes off the horse is an incredible piece of writing and I mean that sincerely. ‘How’s life?’ ‘Taking forever.’ The landlady. Rob Moran playing a cracking little bastard. All great. Bill Murray is just exceptional (the hair alone!). Also just basing an entire film around bowling is inherently funny because bowling is an inherently daft sport which I have no respect for and that’s not got anything to do with me being shit at it (it has a little bit to do with it). So yeah I enjoyed it. It’s almost good. Better than fucking Shallow Hal

A story of bowling and losers with some coarse salt.

Outside of Bill Murrays mostly improvised dialogue and Claudia's tits, theres not much thats really exciting about this film. Most of the jokes dont land like they use to. The script was also fairly paint by numbers and the acting is mediocre at best.