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 Willy 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. At the
Entertainment, Holiday, Hoyts Providence 16, and Showcase cinemas.
Issue Date: February 15 - 21, 2002
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