“… even though Super Troopers isn’t the best Broken Lizard movie it might be the most genuine.”

With the long-awaited sequel coming out today, last night I decided to watch Super Troopers. This cult classic film has been a mainstay in stoner culture as well as the talk of every college-aged student from the early 2000’s (“What? You haven’t seen Super Troopers? What’s wrong with you?”). The film follows a group of state troopers in Vermont who — well they don’t really do anything. That is until they stumble across a giant drug smuggling conspiracy that they are quickly in the centre of, and they have to pull all of their wits together to try and solve the crime.

I want to start by saying that I like Super Troopers. Though there are better movies, and even better Broken Lizard movies, Super Troopers maintains this charm throughout that is undeniable. This is really just a polite way of me saying that Super Troopers is a very amateur movie. Not only are the performances and direction decidedly low-budget and ‘relaxed’, but the biggest issue I have with the shoestring budget of Super Troopers is the script. Super Troopers is not a movie, but rather a series of loosely connected skits that fill out its 100 minute runtime. This is painfully obvious when watching the movie and scratching your head wondering what the point of all of it is. And this reaches levels close to insulting when the plot haphazardly tries to tie itself back to the ‘main story’ throughout these small sketches.

Obviously Super Troopers is a movie made out of friendship. This group of guys are just like every other group of friends in the world: they make fun of one another, they bounce ideas back and fourth, they laugh sometimes a little too loud while eating at Denny’s together; but the difference between this group of friends is they did something with their jokes. They went out and created Super Troopers, a movie that I’m sure was born out of a lot of illegal drugs and alcohol and late night brainstorming sessions, and threw it into the world. Though Super Troopers doesn’t have a coherent storyline or competent performances or direction, it does have one thing: heart. It’s undeniable when watching Super Troopers that it feels like you’re in on the joke. It’s obvious that this group of friends are constantly laughing at each other and breaking character in the movie, but instead of getting angry you laugh along with them. See, even though Super Troopers isn’t the best Broken Lizard movie it might be the most genuine.

I don’t think they can pull of a movie like this again (which is why I hope the sequel isn’t just fan service), but this time they captured lighting in a bottle and it was very enjoyable.

I give Super Troopers a B