Super Troopers (2001)

Super Troopers' is - almost literally - a 'car crash.' It's a comedy about four (or was it five?) state troopers who spend their days generally winding up motorists (and occasionally catching criminals). However, their days appear to be numbered when local government threatens to shut down their unit in favour of another 'better' department.I say 'four or five' troopers because I couldn't really tell them apart. One was black. One was stupid (or even more stupid than the others - if you can believe that!), but the other lot were pretty interchangeable (maybe it was the abundance of moustaches?). Basically, the film has no recognisable stars (unless you count Brian Cox and Linda 'pre Gal Gadot Wonder Woman' Carter's minor roles.The comedy throughout is definitely of an 'adult' nature, so expect daftness and bawdy male humour. I don't know whether it was just me, but I didn't laugh that much during its run-time and you may be forgiven for thinking that I didn't enjoy it. Despite its lack of stars, maturity and (obvious?) jokes, it was strangely entertaining.I think you have to be in the mood for something like this and know what you're getting. If you're looking for something even slightly intellectual then steer well clear. There's no brainpower required to watch this, only an appreciation of severely low-brown humour. And, I obviously was in the right mood when I watched it, as I'm actually quite looking forward to the (belated?) sequel which I can only hope entertains as much as this one does.

I have a list of movies that, when airing on TV, I tend to get sucked into. "Super Troopers" is absolutely one of those. This thing's hysterical. It's sophomoric to the core, but it'd be a disservice to chalk it up to your run-of-the-mill immaturity. On paper, pretty much all of these jokes should fall flat; but this group of players is extremely well-suited to the material - which is really just a long series of memorable one-liners. And then they throw in Brian Cox and Danial von Bargen, and there's no weak link in this cast. But it's really the stupid things these guys resort to when they're bored. Sometimes I think we should all incorporate cat games into our everyday.I love this movie.8/10

Super Troopers is about four state troopers that do shenanigans and have a rivalry with the police. That's the whole plot.The intro and ending were great, they really tied up the story pretty well. But I'm afraid the rest of the movie wasn't that good.The film wasn't that funny, the jokes were not amusing at all.No wonder this is considered a stoner flick, you'd have to be pretty stone to enjoy it. And honestly, I don't know why it's considered one at all, they smoke weed once in the entire movie.The movie had no character development at all, although it had good dialogue.Farva reminded me of Gomer Pyle from FMJ and the moustaches were a nice touch to the troopers.Overall, the movie was OK.

There is something intrinsically funny about a cop who pulls over a carload of potheads whose vehicle is full of smoke and whose passengers are trying, with all their might, to keep it cool. The officer clearly knows that an herbal substance is involved, yet he arrives at the car's window, asks for the license and registration and calmly asks the driver: "Do you know how fast you were going?" That's funny, but then the nervous driver sputters out "Uhhh, sixty-five?!" The cop replies with a vicious smile "Sixty-three." That, to me, is funny and a scene like that has the potential to build into a grand comic invention, especially in light of the fact that the guy in the backseat of the offending car, out of sheer panic, has just eaten ten pounds of pot in order to dispose of the evidence. The cop lets the potheads go with a warning only to pull the car over again and start the exact same conversation all over again.The scene works, but alas, it is the film's only moment of true inspiration. The rest of the movie, try as it may, just never gets anywhere. Super Troopers is a potentially good idea for a comedy: a group of rowdy, uninhibited highway patrolmen, working in a town of very little crime, pull pranks designed to put the fear of God into the unsuspecting motorists. Unfortunately, the movie opens with that idea but never really runs with it. Instead this is one of those frat house-style comedies where the guys insult each other, play pranks, drink beer and try to one-up the stuffy cops in the neighboring district.The hair-thin storyline involves the rivalry between the heroes, a group of Vermont State Troopers led by Captain O'Hagan (Brian Cox), and the local cops led by Chief O'Grady (Daniel Von Bargen). The governor of Vermont (Lynda Carter) is about to shut down the highway patrol due to the city's budget cut-backs, so the troopers are out to save their department. When a dead body and a load of pot are discovered in a Winnebago, the competition is on to discover clues. This is only the outline of the story, much of rest of the movie is made up of silly gross-out scenes and stupid pranks, none of which are very funny.That's my basic problem with Super Troopers, I just didn't laugh very much. Scene after scene involves a series of the cops on-upping themselves and rival cops, but the gags just don't work, and I sat there throughout the movie smiling but never laughing. Maybe that has to do with the fact that I never found the heroes very engaging. They are potentially nice guys but they never seem to have any personality traits that couldn't be transplanted into any other job. You could easily see these guys as firemen, linemen, window washers, fishermen, construction workers or even pastry chefs. There's nothing to discern them as cops.The one element in the movie that did work, briefly, is a nice romance that blossoms between one of the patrolmen and a pretty blond dispatcher (Marisa Coughlan) who works for the cops. They aren't supposed to be together, but their union unlocks some clues to the body in the Winnebago. That subplot exists around the edges of the movie and never really finds its legs.The movie was made by an American comedy troup who call themselves Broken Lizard, who formed at Colgate University in the early 90s. The five members of the group all appear in this film (one of them, Jay Chandrasekhar, directed it). They have a certain amount of charm but there's something halted in their comic invention. They don't set up scenes for comedy, instead their movie feels like a dartboard. They throw out a series of random gags and see what sticks. This is my first exposure to Broken Lizard and I can say that, for me, their freshman effort gets a D+. I can imagine that they will grow as artists. I hope so, because what they invented for the first scene of this movie shows that they have the potential for great comic invention. Best of luck in the future, guys