| Reviewer Roundup |
| 1. |
 | Dustin Putman |
| review follows |
|   |
| 2. |
| Steve Rhodes |
| read the review |
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Review by Dustin Putman
1½ stars out of 4
The Broken Lizards (including Paul Soter, Kevin Heffernan, Erik Stolhanske,
Jay Chandrasekhar, and Steve Lemme) began as an undergraduate comedy
troupe at Colgate University in 1989, following up their little-seen
1996 film, "Puddle Cruiser," with the bigger-budgeted, more widely
accessible "Super Troopers." With the thinnest of plots and one clever
hook--immature, bored highway patrolmen who entertain themselves by
goofing with the people they stop--"Super Troopers" plays like a long
series of skits whose comedy is a whole lot funnier to the filmmakers
and actors than it is to the viewer.
The story, or lack thereof, concerns a group of jokey state troopers
in Spurbury, Vermont, whose bitter rivals are the city police. When
a dead body is discovered in a Winnebago and drug smuggling is suspected,
the two forces go head-to-head in their investigations. Meanwhile,
the state troop's jobs are threatened with the impending visit from
the governor (Lynda Carter), who they suspect may cut them off in
favor of the cheaper city cops unless they manage to do something
extraordinary while in her presence.
"Super Troopers" incorporates a few amusing gags into a wildly uneven
movie that takes a single good idea, and creates with it infinitely
more misses than hits on the joke meter. Director Chandrasekhar also
doesn't know when to quit, stretching the already-anemic material
out to a long 103 minutes. With the press kit falsely touting "a laugh
every six seconds," the laughs really come, perhaps, once ever sixteen
minutes. The opening sequence, for example, in which three stoner
friends are confused and accosted by the scheming patrolmen, grasps
several big laughs out of the novel idea. Tellingly, the next funny
moment doesn't come for quite a while later.
Except for Kevin Heffernan, as the overweight, constantly put-upon
Farva, and Paul Soter, as nice guy Foster, the five Broken Lizard
performers unsuccessfully create distinctive characters, with the
actions blending in with each other. The screenplay, written by all
five of them, is a cut-and-paste job that offers little in the way
of memorability. Faring better is Brian Cox (1999's "The Corruptor"),
as Capt. John O'Hagan, who gets several outrageous moments in the
second half after getting drunk with his coworkers. Marisa Coughlan
(2001's "Freddy Got Fingered"), as city trooper Ursula, is cute in
the obligatory romantic love interest role.
"Super Troopers" ultimately plays like a weak episode of "Saturday
Night Live," with a few isolated moments working extraordinarily well
in a sea of embarrassingly asinine jokes that fall flat. One can imagine
how the premise could be reworked for a good television sitcom, and
preliminary plans for such are already in the works. As a film, however,
"Super Troopers" simply isn't worth your time, destined to go down
as 2002's answer to 1992's Kristy Swanson flop, "Buffy the Vampire
Slayer," before it was turned into the successful Sarah Michelle Gellar series.
Copyright © 2002 Dustin Putman
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out of 4
