Dumb & Dumber may have put the Farrelly brothers on the Hollywood map, but Kingpin is the first great example of their hysterically gross form of humor. When the film was released in the summer of 1996, it was neither a big moneymaker nor an overwhelming critical success. But time and again, it contains laughs so gut-busting that it's almost impossible to do them justice in words. Think of a grown man defecating into a public urinal. Think of an unfortunate soul with a hook for a hand. Think of the magnificently nasty scenario of "milking" a bull. Such throwaway sight gags certainly sound outrageous on paper and are maybe even good for a chuckle or two. Put to the screen in Kingpin, however, they are masterful bits of shock humor, and the film has a wealth of even richer jokes that span nearly two hours of priceless entertainment.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly have made a very lucrative career out of telling gross-out jokes. In many ways, they were the progenitors of the modern R-rated comedy. In Kingpin, however, "gross" doesn't even begin to describe the depths to which the filmmaking brothers will go for the sake of a laugh. This film is without question one of the dirtiest I have ever seen, not just in terms of risqué content, but on the level of sheer grime within the frame. Every inch of every scene is tacky at best and downright gross at worst -- but the Farrellys somehow make the ugly charming and the gross absolutely hilarious.

Even the film's basic setup is outlandish to its core: a washed-up former bowling champion stumbles upon an Amish prodigy and vows to make him a champion. Woody Harrelson is the washed-up wunderkind, named Roy Munson, who was on the fast track to bowling superstardom (if such a thing exists) when his right hand was hacked to pieces in a ball return when a shady late-night bet went awry. Randy Quaid is Ishmael, the Amish dude with a sweet stroke. Their goal is to reach a million-dollar Pro-Am tournament in Reno, where they will likely face off with Roy's former nemesis, Ernie McCracken (Bill Murray), who is indirectly responsible for Roy's missing hand. Along the way, they meet Claudia (Vanessa Angel), the abused girlfriend of a rich bowling hustler, who joins the two "heroes" in an effort to escape her rotten state of life.

Their misadventures on the road to Nevada are marked with no small number of seedy characters and unsavory situations that could easily repel viewers, but the Farrellys find just the right angle on nearly every joke, making even the most repulsive gags hilarious. They certainly milk every last laugh out of Roy's rubber hand and an equal amount out of the hook underneath it, all of which are much funnier than they have the right to be. The Amish humor could have slipped into tired, repetitive sketch territory, but the directors are more interested in humor than mockery (though, of course, some gentle mocking never hurt anyone).

Visible joy of performance is a crucial element for any comedy to strike a chord with its audience, and by the looks of it, Kingpin must have been a blast to star in. Harrelson has played a lot of doofuses in his career, but Roy Munson is one of the funniest and oddly, one of the most sympathetic. He's a guy whose unfortunate circumstances precipitated his fall from grace, and even though he remains the butt of many jokes, his renewed passion for bowling could save him from eternal obscurity. Quaid gives one of his best comedic performances as Ishmael, finding the perfect blend of innocence and idiocy. Angel is savvily cast as the girl everyone expects to be an air-headed bimbo, but who basically outthinks every man in the film; similarly, she is a much more talented actress than one might assume going into a movie like this. And as for Murray, he's allowed to play one of the nastiest, sleaziest pricks in the history of the cinema, and he relishes every moment of it.

On top of all the things that serendipitously went right for Kingpin, there is the material itself. The Farrelly brothers are truly underrated in their storytelling ability. Yes, they create one of their crudest comedies ever, but they also develop a real story and craft characters with full thematic trajectories. They also don't shy away from unpleasant twists, and never settle for conventional happy endings. Kingpin is perhaps their best creation, a comedy that is almost perversely enjoyable.