Kingpin

The guys who brought you There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber strike again with a gut-busting farce that's "just too funny" (Los Angeles Times)! Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid and Vanessa Angel come up winners in this riotous, joke-a-second comedy with plenty of balls. Harrelson is Roy Munson, a pro bowler who seems destined for greatness, or as close to greatness as a bowler can get. But after a run-in with angry competitors, Roy finds himself sadder, wiser and minus his bowling hand! Years later, he meets the naive Ishmael (Quaid), an Amish bowling whiz. Together they set out for a million-dollar tournament in Reno, and along the way pick up Claudia (Angel), a sexy vixen with brains, attitude and really big...ideas. With her help, they make it to the tournament. But will Roy and Ishmael win the big match and score fame and fortune...or will all their hopes and dreams go barreling down the gutter?

The team behind Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary--two really stupid, gross-out films that worked and were quite funny--also made this really stupid, gross-out comedy that doesn't work and isn't funny at all. Woody Harrelson stars as a former bowling phenomenon with a hook for a hand, and Randy Quaid is an Amish farmer with a hidden talent for pins. The two join forces and get a sexy business partner (Vanessa Angel), and the film starts looking more and more like a jokey variation of The Color of Money. The Color of Money, however, didn't feature jokes about having oral sex with a hideous landlady or defecating in a sink or dragging disgusting stuff out of one's teeth with a length of floss. Bill Murray provides some much-needed relief as Harrelson's ex-partner turned rival. How come this stuff is obnoxious while the equally perverse punch lines of There's Something About Mary are a riot? It's a great mystery, all right, but there it is. --Tom Keogh