Super Troopers

Super Troopers is a 2001 comedy from the Broken Lizard comedy group, a group that I know little about. It is an interesting film, in that it is not particular gross, and instead aims for a geniality that, while not uproariously funny, is pleasant enough.

The members of the troupe, including the director, Jay Chandrasekhar, star as a motley crew of Vermont highway patrolman.They are fun-loving, and like to play pranks on people, such as having two of them stop a motorist and repeat everything the other one says. They are are not terribly mean-spirited, though. But their station is subject to closure became of budget cuts.

They are also in a rivalry with the local cops, and are constantly fighting turf wars. When a Winnebago with a dead body shows up just as the troopers stop a semi full of weed, they start putting two and two together.

I sat through this film without feeling much of anything. It has elements of Animal House, and I suspect that it bears some resemblance to the truth, as I always thought there was a thin line between cops and the people they arrest. The cast is appealing, though, if not virtuosos at comic acting. The script has the usual elements of the "underdog" comedy, especially an unlikely romance with one of the boys with the very hot cop played by Maxim mainstay Marisa Coughlan.

I was taken by the presence of the great actor Brian Cox as the troopers' captain. At first I felt sorry for him, wondering how an actor of his stature ended up in a film like this. But then I realized that a good actor can make anything more worthwhile. He maintains his dignity and, in a late scene when all of them are drunk, acts circles around them.

Super Troopers doesn't aim very high, and avoids the kind of humor we have grown to expect, centering around bodily fluids. There's a little nudity, not much swearing, and absolutely no semen, which is something of a relief.