Paul Walter Hauser Quietly Steals Delightful Crime Comedy ‘Queenpins’

Queenpins, directed by Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet, is a fun caper that proves to be a comedic showcase for stand-out performer Paul Walter Hauser.

The comedy Queenpins gives “extreme couponing” a whole meaning.

Based on the true crime story from 2012, the film takes the real-life premise of women selling counterfeit coupons and expands on it, exploring characters as undervalued as the phony markdowns they’re pawning off on everyone.

Connie (Kristen Bell) is a former Olympian (in the underappreciated race walking event) left financially decrepit, who starts couponing as a form of therapy after she loses a baby with her husband Rick (the smarmy yet hot Joel McHale). JoJo (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) starts a couponing YouTube site as a form of income after her identity is stolen from her and she can’t make a decent, steady living. So what do the two women do? They start selling fake coupons and making millions in the process. This might sound like another iteration of Bad Moms (which Bell starred in), but this film has a bit more depth, especially in its comedic bench of players.

Someone, too, who is undervalued (both as an actor and as his character) is Paul Walter Hauser’s Ken, a fraud specialist who works for the grocery chain that Connie and JoJo rip off. A stickler for rules (he won’t even let an old lady use a coupon she didn’t know was fraudulent), Ken’s answering machine is filled with people asking about coupons. He can’t even have his morning bowel movement without thinking about discounts. Fresh off of his recent appearance in Netflix’s I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, Hauser is continuing to prove that he’s as versatile in comedic roles as he is in dramatic ones, like playing the title role in 2019’s Richard Jewell.

Hauser plays well off of Vince Vaughn’s no-nonsense postal inspector Simon with a chemistry we’re not used to seeing from Vaughn. Usually, Vaughn is the crude straight man to the hijinks going on around him, as in Old School and pretty much everything he did from 2003 to 2012. He typically bites at bumbling characters like Ken, but with Hauser, there’s an understanding and maybe even appreciation, even when Ken has a highly unfortunate incident in Simon’s car. This is a tribute to Hauser and Vaughn’s performances, but also the direction and script from Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly. A more trite film would depict Ken as a Tommy Boy-esque character, but here, you question whether he’s the real hero of the story by the end of the film.

Queenpins takes twists and turns that you don’t necessarily see coming (unless of course you remember how calculating corporate America can be). While sometimes a bit too on-the-nose with its metaphors (Connie’s collecting items to mask the baby wallpaper), the script works because of how much Gaudet and Pullapilly care about their characters, which comes through in the performances from the cast as well. The film is a refreshing surprise in a sea of reboots and Marvel films, when original comedies are as rare as some of the coupons Connie and JoJo are selling.

Queenpins is in theaters September 10 and coming soon to Paramount+.