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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 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.

By Gerald Peary

Issue Date: February 15 - 21, 2002