Kingpin (1996)

Directed by The Farrelly brothers (Bobby and Peter), Kingpin is yet another slice of comedy brilliance from the men who gave the world Dumb & Dumber and There's Something About Mary, to name their two best films. This movie takes the world of ten-pin bowling and adds their usual mix of smart "dumb" gags, gross-out humour and set-pieces to make you laugh out loud.

Woody Harrelson plays Roy Munson, a young man with a great future ahead of him. He can bowl better than anyone else in the game and is on his way to greatness. Until he meets Ernie McCracken (yet another tour de force performance from the great Bill Murray). Ernie talks him into taking part in a money-making scam and things go horribly wrong when the victims demand revenge. Roy loses a hand, which is a big loss for any wannabe bowling champion. Years pass by and Roy becomes one hell of a loser. Things are so bad that his surname is synonymous with taking something potentially great and just turning it all to shit, pardon my language but that is the best way to describe it. His fortunes look up, however, when he finds himself a protege in the form of Ishmael (Randy Quaid). If Roy can convince Ishmael to go along with him on a road trip then they can get to a championship that has a first prize of one million dollars. Ishmael is reluctant to go along as he lives an Amish life and doesn't want to be outcast from the community but circumstances soon change enough to allow the two men to head off. They're soon joined by the gorgeous Claudia (Vanessa Angel) and, of course, "Big Ern" is still acting as if he's the best bowler who ever knocked down some pins. He certainly isn't worried by an Amish lad and some washed-up loser with one prosthetic hand.

Kingpin is, clearly, not for everyone but if you have a healthy sense of humour and aren't easily offended then you will probably find yourself at least having a good chuckle every few minutes. The gags keep flying around so thick and fast that only the most mirthless individuals can fail to have a good time. Even when there aren't clear jokes being made there are constantly amusing performances from the main cast members - Harrelson and Quaid are VERY funny, Vanessa Angel is gorgeous and joins in with all of the fun while Bill Murray steals almost every scene that he's in. There are also great little turns from Chris Elliott, Lin Shaye and Rob Moran.

The script is easily the best thing ever written for cinema by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan, the soundtrack is lively and fun (gaining extra points for the inclusion of a great E.L.O track - "Showdown") and there are a couple of great montage moments. The Farrelly brothers know just how far to go and then, as usual, go one step further, which is what makes them so great in the field of comedy. The film is ridiculous, but hilariously so, and while I still think that both Dumb & Dumber and There's Something About Mary hold up as better comedies with bigger laughs, I don't argue strongly with anyone who puts this movie above those two.

In comedy terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it's a strike!

8/10

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Gutterballs (2008)

I have to admit that I was not sure if I was going to like this movie at all. Other horror fans had told me that Gutterballs was impressively sleazy but that's not always a good thing, depending on the tone of the film and how many other aspects it gets right. Gutterballs gets quite a few things wrong but I have to admit that I was impressed and entertained, overall.

The evening after a particularly nasty and brutal gang rape, a local bowling alley is the scene of a number of revenge killings committed by someone who seems particularly handy with the trappings of the ten-pin world. As is so often the case in these movies, the survivors continue to remain implausibly oblivious to their potential appointment with death long after normal people would have figured out that something was amiss.

Where writer-director Ryan Nicholson succeeds here is in his unabashed, unflinching depiction of some downright nasty nastiness. The effects on display here are often eye-wateringly impressive and many moments will make you wince. There's also some good humour here and there, some of which is obvious (I, personally, enjoyed the banter coming from the Wax-o-matic machine) and some of which I just hope was intentional so am giving the benefit of the doubt to (e.g. most of the script in the latter half of the movie, the movie is listed everywhere as a horror comedy so I think it's fair to say that most of the laughs were intended).

Sadly, the negatives really drag things down. The acting on display here is pretty atrocious and it seems that the women were just chosen for their willingness to show their breasts (not that I'm complaining TOO strenuously about that, mind) and the guys were picked thanks to their ability to swear, act like the worst kind of misogynists and endure whatever makeup work was required. Candice Lewald deserves some praise for being especially brave in her portrayal of Lisa, the victim of the graphic sexual assault while the other actresses deserve praise for their severe underwear allergies. To be fair, Mehola Terzic is preety good as plucky Sarah. And Dan Ellis is just generally pretty damn fantastic so that almost makes up for the rest of the actors struggling to generate any real screen presence.

The script is truly awful for a large portion of the film, none of the characters are worth caring about and it's only when the killing starts that the movie starts to feel like a movie. Okay, I suppose you could say the same about many low-grade slasher flicks so it's not the end of the world. Many of the lame lines can actually be construed as amusing but the constant profanity and derogatory comments in the first half of the movie just feels like someone asked the actors to improvise before checking their vocabulary levels.

There is also the occasional, lazy mistake such as a girl grabbing a guy round the throat with her right hand while grabbing his crotch . . . . . . . . with her right hand. Unless there was some body-transforming, Cronenberg-esquire stuff going on here that I wasn't aware of then that's just impossible. These things happen.

But with a nice line in sleazy, grimy, nastiness this movie should please those who think most horrors have nowadays become too tame compared to "how they used to make 'em". Ryan Nicholson is a horror film-maker who makes the kind of stuff that he loves/loved as a fan and that's clear in almost every scene. Sadly, so are some of the limitations but I'm going to let my horror-loving heart overrule my head this time round and rate it accordingly.

7/10.

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