Movies - Kingpin

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	Movies - Kingpin

Kingpin is a 1996 Farrelly brothers film starring Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray.

The main characters are the Amish Ten-pin bowler Ishmael Boorg (Randy Quaid) and Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson), a veteran bowler who lost his right hand seventeen years prior to the movie's main story arc. The movie is notable for Bill Murray's portrayal of Roy's antagonist, Ernie 'Big Ern' McCracken, which is widely considered to be the finest and ultimate performance of his amoral/comical archetype.

The critical reception was mixed and it gets 57% at Rottentomatoes. Roger Ebert had one of the more noteworthy positive reviews, giving in 3.5 out of 4 stars. He praised it for "audacity" and for making him laugh. The criticism came from those who felt it was more cruel and vulgar than funny.

As with The Big Lebowski
(another Ten-pin bowling movie, the film, while not a box office smash, has garnered a devoted group of fans and could be considered a cult classic. On the movie Web site Hollywood Bitchslap, 50 users reviewed or rated the film, and more than 73% rated the movie either "awesome" or "worth a look."

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Kingpin starts with Woody Harrelson starring as Roy Munson, a child bowling prodigy who recently won the 1979 Iowa state amateur bowling championship. Young Roy comes from Ocelot, Iowa, and is all set to leave the town he grew up in to go on the professional bowling tour. Once he does, he wins his first tournament, defeating a none-too-pleased Ernie McCracken in the finals.

An unhappy McCracken decides to get back at the young bowler, first by putting sugar in his gas tank, then convincing him to join with him to make extra money by gambling on bowling games. At an alley in the middle of the night, the two bowlers (masquerading as dictionary salesmen) take a group of con men for $3,000, but the con men pay them back by smashing McCracken's rear windshield. Munson gets out of the car to try to defuse the situation, but McCracken fakes him out and drives off, leaving the young bowler at the mercy of the con men.

The men carry Munson back into the alley, where they jam his hand into the ball return, severely mangling the key to Munson's bowling success.

Fast forward to modern times, where a down-and-out Munson (who has a hook for a hand at this point) is a bowling supply salesman living in a run-down apartment building in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a bitter old man and a urine-drinking man as neighbors, and a landlady who is always on Munson to pay his rent (which he never does on time, because business has dried up).

While at a bowling alley where he does business (poorly, because the alley is fully stocked and doesn't need anything), Munson stumbles on the Amish bowler Ishmael, whom he tries to give bowling advice to. After learning that Ishmael is carrying a 270 average, Munson tries to get him to turn professional, but due to his Amish beliefs, he won't.

Back home, Munson decides to try conning his way into getting an extension on his rent by paying a guy (Willie Garson) to stage a mugging on his landlady. The con works...until the landlady, who has come to thank Munson, enters and finds out about the con. Needless to say, she isn't the least bit happy, and goes crazy while Munson tries to calm her down, saying there must be something he can do to smooth things over. The landlady agrees...to sex.

While throwing up after the experience, Munson gets a bowler's magazine tossed at him by the now-satisfied landlady. On the cover, the magazine mentions a tournament at the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, Nevada with a winner-take-all prize of $1 million (US). Once again, he tries to convince Ishmael to turn professional- this time by posing as an Amish man from Ohio named Hezakiah Munson. While trying desperately to fit in by doing chores (and not succeeding), he once again tries to convince Ishmael to come with him, telling him about the Reno tournament. Ishmael won't, but upon receiving news from his father that the bank that owns the mortgage on the community is going to foreclose unless they can come up with $500,000, he reluctantly agrees to go, only because he wants to earn enough to save his community. Munson and Ishmael then go out, trying to make enough money to both get to Reno and participate in the tournament.

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Movies - Kingpin

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