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I will give any genre of movie a shot. However, one type of movie that I connect with the least for whatever reason is the dumb-humored R-comedy. Sure, I loved Wedding Crashers, and National Lampoon movies I have seen too many times to count (the ones dating before the 2000s). I will see anything with the names Judd Apatow or The Farrelly Brothers attached to it, and I will be the first in line to see The Hangover 2. However, my affinity towards these movies ends about there. American Pie left me hungry for laughs, Road Trip ran out of gas about ten minutes in, Waiting… had me waiting for it to be over, and Hot Tub Time Machine had me looking at my watch more than the screen.

But Super Troopers might be one of the worst I have seen in quite some time when it comes to dumb comedy with a restricted rating.

Looking for a laugh, I decided to reluctantly watch Super Troopers. Between its decent IMDb rating and lukewarm remarks from friends, I figured I would give it a shot. Turns out I should have dodged this stray bullet and stayed far away.

This is the point where I usually talk about the plot, but there really is not one to be found in Super Troopers. Resembling a bad Saturday Night Live episode, the film is merely skit upon skit of twisted cops pulling twisted pranks on equally twisted Vermonters. The only inkling of a story holding the random sketches together is that the Vermont government’s budget cuts are forcing the troopers out of their jobs in favor for the local police department. After seeing these troopers in action, it is not hard to see why.

Afraid of losing their positions, the troopers try to prove their worth through some convoluted case involving a truck filled with marijuana.

Jay Chandrasekhar directs, co-scripts, and stars as the lead trooper. Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske also co-script and co-star in equally non-descript roles, making up the five person comedy troupe known as Broken Lizard. Hitting the nightclub comedy circuit in the early ‘90s, the group gained traction with the college crowd. In 1996, the guys released their first film, Puddle Cruiser. Playing at film festivals, it failed to find a distributor and went straight-to-DVD. Gaining a cult following, the men followed up Puddle Cruiser with the $3 million-budgeted Super Troopers, which made double its costs on opening weekend. Picked up by Fox Searchlight, the film was moderately successful when it was released over President’s Day weekend in 2002 (fun fact: That weekend’s top ten included Britney Spears’ Crossroads, the Peter Pan sequel – Return to Neverland, Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Snow Dogs, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s disastrous Collateral Damages. Talk about quality). Out of theaters as quickly as it went in, the film accumulated a tidy $18.5 million ($25.3 million today) and really made the big bucks when it hit DVD.

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