Queenpins review – IGN

Queenpins is in select Cinemark theaters nationwide on September 10, then airs on Paramount + on September 30.

There’s some data when it comes to a Kristen Bell comedy: she’s going to be funny, she’s probably going to make you like her character, and the project is really going to fly if you don’t hold her back. In the case of Queenpins, she succeeds in the first two, but writers / directors Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly strangle her in what should have been a wacky comedy, then commit the cardinal sin of sidelining Bell in the third. act.

Loosely based on a real Arizona case in 2012 where three women were arrested for orchestrating the biggest counterfeit coupon scam in US history, Queenpins reframe those details by narrowing the players down to two perpetrators: Connie (Bell) and his best friend JoJo (Kirby Howell- Baptiste). A former Olympic walker, Connie is now stuck in the Phoenix suburbs, burying her miscarriage depression with obsessive coupons while barely existing next to her austere IRS auditor husband (Joel McHale). JoJo understands Connie’s plight, as she too is unhappy, living with her mother due to recent identity theft and trying to leverage YouTube to sell makeup and build a “brand” out of her current situation. .

Both of them enjoy the fleeting “victory” of extreme couponing endorphins, but then they raise the stakes. Connie finds out that she can get free business coupons just for complaining. Soon the pair have a side business selling the coupons at a profit through a janky website, eventually finding a way to access additional printed coupons from a Mexican coupon clearinghouse, and it becomes a transaction of one million dollars.

Previously, Bell and Howell-Baptiste have worked together on The Good Place, the Veronica Mars reboot, and at improv events in LA, and it comes through strongly in their ease with each other, which initially got us going. drawn into their orbit. They ably convince us that Connie and JoJo are competent underdogs, somehow deserving of siphoning off millions of stupid conglomerates than the average nickel and dime buyers. Even JoJo’s former impersonation scammer (well played by Bebe Rexha) takes pity on them.

A loss prevention officer at a local grocery store, Ken Miller (Paul Walter Hauser), serves as the perfect tinsel for the two ladies. Adept at the rules and expiration dates of coupons, he is positioned to be the balanced opponent to bring down everything. But as the case escalates, Vince Vaughn is introduced as U.S. Postal Inspector Al Anderson, and that’s when the movie really goes off the rails.

Suddenly, Ken becomes Al’s albatross as they investigate the evidence and surround the Phoenix-based operation. The women then disappear for extended periods of time as an annoyed Al – a core character in Vaughn – endures chatty plane rides and rental car lookouts with Ken. All their scenes drag on, and the strange couple comedy goes beyond its welcome.

All of this contributes to the third act really moving away from Gaudet and Pullapilly, which is hugely disappointing after a very tight and enjoyable first act. The engaging cat-and-mouse dynamic between the central duo and the Feds disappears, and comedy is not allowed to flourish in the kind of excess that Bell and Howell-Baptiste would have knocked out of the park. What could have been a sneaky black comedy about illegally acquired empowerment and sticking to the businessman ends like a bland sitcom. It’s a fun ride, but it could have been a lot more.