Until recently, I'd never seen the movie Kingpin. This may be hard to believe, since there was a time there when it seemed like Comedy Central was playing it three times a week, every week for a year and a half. It's been in my Netflix queue for a while too, never bubbling to the top.
After a lunch time conversation, a co-worker decided that Kingpin needed to line jump. He brought in his copy of the DVD for me to watch. As the DVD sat there on my desk at work, and then later on my counter at home, it prompted an interesting array of comments. Some people told me they thought the movie was really funny, and they were sure I would enjoy it. Others thought the movie was pretty terrible, and that I should just give it right back and not waste my time.
My opinion fell somewhere between the extremes. If I was expecting another raucous, funny Farrelly Brothers film to rival There's Something About Mary, I didn't get it. But if I was expecting to sit there for just under two hours in stony silence, I didn't get that either. And yet, it might be that the best thing to come of this film is that it's where Woody Harrelson met Bill Murray, which would pay off a decade later in the most awesomely funny part of the awesomely funny Zombieland.
Bill Murray is definitely the best thing about this movie, and since his character bookends the film, the middle chunk really starts to drag. Woody Harrelson is at his funniest when he's playing a more eccentric character (see Cheers, Zombieland, etc.), but here he's really the straight man to the not-as-funny Randy Quaid. It's not that Quaid is bad. He's just not as funny as I imagine other actors would have been, even Woody Harrelson, had he been cast in the other role.
It's not a bad comedy, all told. It's just disappointingly average for featuring some talented actors. I rate it a C+.
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