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SUPER TROOPERS

I’m not ready to say there’s nothing funny in this slaphappy shaggy-dog story about a crew of screwball Vermont State Troopers who spend their summer days playing head games with motorists, chugging maple syrup, and brawling with the local cops. I will say, though, that there’s not much. Here’s a breakdown: Pretty funny: 1) officers discover that the cartoon logo appearing on seized bales of marijuana and tattooed on a dead drug dealer is none other than Johnny Chimpo, star of a cheap anime knockoff from Central Asia called Afghanistanimation. 2) A trust-fund hippie, thrown in a cruiser after downing two ounces of grass and an eighth of mushrooms, begins licking the partition and quoting Gene Wilder’s Willie Wonka: "The snozzberries taste like snozzberries." 3) Brian Cox, last seen in L.I.E., concludes a valiant turn as the force’s put-upon captain by getting violently loaded on Johnnie Walker Black and howling, "I’m naked!" into the two-way radio (even though he’s not). Not that funny: everything else. Troopers shows promise, especially in how director Jay Chandrasekhar is able to wrangle his comedy troupe, Broken Lizard, into a group performance that’s more than the sum of its parts. But funny is as funny does, and this one doesn’t do too much.

BY MIKE MILIARD

Issue Date: February 14 - 21, 2002
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