Super Troopers (2001)

Directed By: Jay Chandrasekhar

Written by: Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan

 Thorny (Jay Chadrasekhar), Mac (Steve Lemme), Rabbit(Erik Stolhanske), Foster(Paul Soter) and Farva (Kevin Heffernan) are Vermont state troopers out who don’t take their positions very seriously.  Not only do they constantly break the law themselves, but they aren’t very talented at apprehending actual criminals.  Their strip of highway is located in a small town located near the Canadien Border.  The governor announces a budget cut is coming and that it may be the end of the Troopers as the local P.D., the troopers arch nemisis, will take over their road. The Super Troopers try and play it straight, and when a dead body appears on their highway that seems to be connected with a local drug ring, they stumble aimlessly to find who is responcible.

 For years I’ve heard how hilarious Super Troopers was, but to experience the phenomenon myself, I found it less than savory.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of mindless and offensive comedy’s, when they are done well enough, but I just found Super Troopers to leave you feeling dry most of the time.  It seemed most of the comedy was based on a shock value and less on real humour.  Some of the jokes, simply were not funny.  They were just dumb.

 At times it did succeed and it certainly had it’s share of laugh out loud moments.  Most of the comedic pranks they pulled on the highway definitely was awarded with good chuckles, but the individual character’s were obnoxious, and not in a fun way.

 The off-base timing of the actors left many scenes dead.  And since there was simply no structure to the film whatsoever it left the character’s naked in their simplicity.  It became abundantly evident that they were only being used as pawns for “funny” scenes that didn’t connect to the bigger picture anyway.  The lack of character quality, and the lazy script and direction left this film pretty much empty.

 Though Super Troopers did manage to pull out a few good laughs, it was not worth the time it took to sit through it.  This film seems more like a flick made by a bored college student than a feature film.  I’m not sure what has attracted so many people to this movie, but I just didn’t buy into any of it’s nonsense.  Quoting a much more intelligent “mindless” comedy, “I feel dumber for having seen this.”  Super Troopers was not worth a free rental, the time wasted, nor squandering any of my already busy brain cells.  It gets a half a star, and that’s only because it did occasionally ignite a random dose of funny.