This is an odd concept for a film--a movie all about bowling! Who would have thought you could make a decent comedy about bowling and who would have thought it would actually be funny? In many ways, the weirdness and irreverent style are very similar to the much later film, TALLADEGA NIGHTS--another "sport" that takes well to parody.

Was this a brilliant film--probably not. But, in a very low-brow way, it does make you laugh and that is enough some times. It gets very high marks for bizarreness (such as the fake hand and the whole Quaker angle) but also loses marks for, unfortunately, losing steam from time to time with needless plot. When the film tried to be meaningful or didn't go for laughs, it fell a bit flat.

It's 1979. Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) was raised by father to be one of the best bowlers in the world. He beats Ernie McCracken (Bill Murray) at the 1979 Odor-Eaters championship. Ernie puts sugar in his car engine and convinces the naive Roy to hustle a bowling game. Ernie leaves him behind as the angry mob grinds off his bowling hand. 17 years later, he's reduced to a traveling salesman. He discovers Ishmael Boorg (Randy Quaid) at a bowling alley. He's a nice Amish guy whose family would disown him for bowling. The Farrelly brothers keep trying and trying. Most of the jokes don't work but they keep trying. The premise and the setups are all ridiculously stupid. The characters are marginally compelling and one could root for Munson.

Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly made their names in crude comedies that pushed the envelope. In Kingpin they display more of their trademark zaniness and crudeness that they showed in Dumb and Dumber

Woody Harrelson plays tenpin bowler named Roy Munson, a potential champion who ended up losing his bowling hand after being tricked by a fellow bowler (Bill Murray).

Many years later living a deadbeat life where he does not have enough money to pay the rent. He meets a devout Amish man called Ishmael (Randy Quaid) who he sees as a potential champion and gets him to leave his community and head to Reno to take part in a championship where he meets up again with Bill Murray, now a sleazy bowling superstar with a bad comb-over.

The film has plenty of crude humour with Harrelson getting into mishaps with his fake hand and hook. There is low brow humour such as milking a bull believing it to be a cow. Murray pops back at the end with hair that has a life of its own.

The film starts off brightly, its refreshingly silly and funny. However it loses its absurdity once they hook up with Claudia (Vanessa Angel) and tries to add depth to the characters. It loses its spontaneity and only becomes sporadically amusing.