Kingpin - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) has his whole life ahead of him. A young bowler with a once-in-a-lifetime talent, he’s a real “local boy makes good” story for his hometown. Until that is, he crosses paths with Ernie “Big Ern” McCracken (Bill Murray, in a scene-stealing performance), a duplicitous snake who exploits Munson’s naivete. Big Ern takes Munson under his wing and introduces him to the world of hustling—manipulating other players for big betting payoffs. Big Ern and Munson piss off the wrong guys and when Big Ern leaves Munson behind, they take their anger out on him. They feed his hand into the ball return, stripping him of his God-given talent for the game.

17 years later, Munson has turned into Big Ern, only worse, because at least Big Ern was successful. Munson is such a mess that his name has become an expression, "to Munson it." Like when you have all the talent in the world and you blow it and wind up a hideous, drunken mess living in a slum of an apartment, you’ve "really Munsoned yourself." One day, while trying to sell lame novelty items to a local bowling alley, Munson poetically crosses paths with someone he can take under his wing, an Amish man named Ish (Randy Quaid), who embodies all the same naivete and talent he did when he was young.

As fate would have it, and as the contrivances of comedy screenwriting would require, the two need each other. There’s a big bowling competition happening in Reno, NV offering a whopping $1 million grand prize, split in half is $500,000 each—the exact amount of money that Ishmael needs to save his family’s farm and save the Amish community. The two hit the road together, repeating the same tricks that Big Ern used, hustling people for money to get their way to Reno. Munson never abandons his protégé when they piss off the wrong people, the way he was abandoned, and instead take someone else along with them on their way to Reno. They rescue the street-smart Claudia (Vanessa Angel) from abusive thugs and she in turn helps them up their moneymaking schemes while on the road.

Kingpin is an oddity of a movie that seems to have baffled people when it was first released in 1996, a mixture of gross-out humor and bittersweet pathos. It wasn’t a financial success, and the critics hated it. Sandwiched between the Farrelly brothers’ two monster hits Dumb & Dumber and There’s Something About Mary, it almost feels lost to time. But the people who’ve seen it absolutely adore it. Perhaps this is a hot take, but as much as I enjoy Dumb & Dumber and There’s Something About Mary, my heart belongs to Kingpin. Kingpin is epic in scope, spanning decades and a tremendous distance on the road, it’s a film about the passage of time. When Munson wonders aloud where the time went, I can feel the anger and the pain. It’s a real moment.

It makes all the difference that the Farrellys seem to genuinely care about the story, written by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan. That sincerity helps those moments feel genuine, and not feel like story beats needed to hit the next fork in the road. It’s a journey, and we journey along with them. They grow in unexpected ways and their growth feels earned.  

Watching Kingpin in 4K, graded in Dolby Vision HDR, it’s immediately clear how great it looks. Kino Lorber picks up the spare on the video presentation and it looks fantastic. I own the DVD, so I was able to do a little comparison to previous releases, and the difference is night and day. Kingpin was scanned in 4K from its original camera negative and it retains a faithful, filmic look with a healthy amount of film grain through. Mark Irwin acted as cinematographer, who also lensed such movies as Videodrome and Scream, so the look of Kingpin is surprisingly sophisticated, with deft use of shadows and color. The neon signs glow at night. The tacky, candy-colored pastel interiors of the bowling alleys. All the way through, the movie looks absolutely stellar.

The extended version is presented in 1080p and appears to have been sourced from the same elements (sans extended sequences, of course). It looks darn near as pristine as the PG-13 version. It may be a bit softer around the edges without the added clarity of 4K resolution, and without HDR grading, the color spectrum isn't as wide nor are those shadows as deep. But most folks wouldn't be able to tell the difference without a side-by-side comparison. For most people, the video presentation on both looks fantastic, and Kino Lorber has bowled two strikes in a row on that front.

Viewers have two audio options, both encoded in DTS-HD MA: A 5.1 surround mix and a 2.0 stereo mix. I gave both a listen and the stereo option, for my money, is the winner, though the surround option does have some great moments, particularly the “angels are bowling in heaven” moment where thunder crackles and groans through the entirety of the soundstage and through the subwoofer. The stereo mix has a bit more oomph to it, and the surround mix, unfortunately, has several musical cues leveled above the dialogue, so the audio can be a bit hit-or-miss there.

Kino Lorber unfortunately Munsons it a bit when it comes to the special features, with just a few to name here, a couple audio commentaries that are quite good, a featurette and some trailers.

• Audio Commentary – Directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly (Extended Cut)
• Audio Commentary – Journalists/Authors Bryan Reesman and Max Every (Theatrical Cut)
• Kingpins: Extra Frames with the Farrelly Brothers (HD 19:09) – Featurette
• Trailers

Kino Lorber picks up a 7-10 split in releasing Kingpin on 4K UHD Blu-ray. The movie is wonderful, and the video presentation is gorgeous. The 5.1 audio mix has some dialogue level issues, but the stereo option is top-notch. And while I wish there has been some more features to make my way through, the two commentaries and new retrospective featurette are quite good. It’s another fantastic release and it’s awesome to see the Kino Lorber Studio Classics label associated with one of my favorite comedies. Highly Recommended.