Going into a Broken Lizard comedy team movie was a completely new experience for this reviewer. Still trying to recover from the jolt to my senses, my noggin is reverberating like a gong and my eyes are continuously spinning. This is not the usual effect a movie has on me, but attending Super Troopers 2 was like an out-of-body experience run amok and supervised by someone with not one oar in the water but none at all.
The Broken Lizard comedy team originated at Colgate College in 1990 by (then) students Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske. After graduating college, the Beta Theta Pi fraternity members performed at small clubs in Greenwich Village. They achieved fame with their first film, Super Troopers, in 2001. The follow-up film was Club Dread, a spoof on slasher films, in 2004. After Chandrasekhar directed The Dukes of Hazard in 2005, the comedy group reunited to film Beerfest in 2006. Then they made The Slammin’ Salmon in 2010. This led to a contract with 20th Century Fox’s division Fox Searchlight in 2015 to make the sequel, Super Troopers 2.
When the governor of Vermont (a still-lovely Lynda Carter) figures out a border line between the United States and Canada has been tampered with and the markers have been moved, a whacky set of State Troopers are sent to the area to occupy the land. They set up a border station to which the Canadians greatly protest. They are not people to mess with, and they don’t take kindly to becoming American citizens by default.
The troopers, who are a combination of the Three Stooges, The Keystone Kops, and Laurel and Hardy, are completely inept at upholding United Nations International Relations. They roar into town like gangbusters and alienate everyone. Our good relations with our neighbor that have been peaceful since the founding of the USA are destroyed within a matter of minutes. Fistfights break out, barrooms are destroyed, faces are bloodied. The troopers are not winning any friends.
Rob Lowe, who must have been between pictures and television shows, looks as though he just stopped by for an afternoon to film some scenes and to pick up some easy money. He plays an outstanding citizen who owns a bordello flop house and dips his hands into other nefarious and unlawful pursuits. Shame, Mr. Lowe. You are better than this. Plus, he probably has the worst fake French-Canadian accent ever recorded. It’s painful to hear him attempting to impersonate that unique cadence. Just awful. This will put a rusted tin spike into the coffin of his career.
Just as a caution to the unsuspecting moviegoer, this is perhaps the crudest, rudest, dirtiest film ever made and borders on trash. However, that is not to say there aren’t many funny scenes that transcend the sophomoric script. This film fits into the classic Porky’s type of humor, with schoolboys who are grown up but haven’t moved on to more sophisticated humor. Bodily functions top the list of subjects for ridicule, of course, swear words are used where perfectly good English words could substitute, and slurs of all types make up the bulk of offenses. If silly, dopey, stupid humor is your cup of tea, then this is a film for you. It is not one for me.
GRADE: D-
Who Should Go: Fans of crude, stupid humor
MPAA Rating: R for crude sexual content and language throughout, drug material and some graphic nudity
Running Time: 100 minutes
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Adventure
Cast: Lynda Carter, Rob Lowe, Brian Cox, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Seann William Scott, Damon Wayans, Jr., Broken Lizard Comedy Team
