It's Okay...

Rating: 6/10 (21 June 1999)

I wasn't that impressed by the movie. There were certainly funny moments, but sometimes they went for obvious laughs (i.e., Munson's hand coming off during his opening frame in Reno), where you can see it's coming and it's _still_ not funny. Bill Murray and Randy Quaid seem to be having fun overacting, but Vanessa Angel is pretty much a non-entity, demonstrating here why Weird Science - The TV Show is probably going to be the pinnacle of her career. Harrelson basically plays an unlikeable bastard.
It also strikes me that the ending is somewhat flawed. Even in most slob-type comedy movies, isn't there a requirement that the bad guy get his comeuppance? The only "triumph" of the climax we're so divorced from that through most of the movie that there's no impact when we find out about it.
When the gags click, they're very funny. The whole Amish community sequence in the beginning is hilarious. However, there's an awful lot of blank space or duds between the gags that do work.
Overall, Kingpin is relatively funny, but it's not as insightful as Ferris Bueller, nor does it spit out the gags the way that Airplane! does.