Based on its previews, “Super Troopers” looked like an idiotic, sub-indie film done in extremely poor taste. However, having seen the fairly smart, amusing “Puddle Cruiser”, the first movie made by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, I decided to keep an open mind and go see ‘Troopers’, their first major release. I’m glad I did, in a way, because now I can say definitively that “Super Troopers” is an idiotic, sub-indie film done in extremely poor taste. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.<br><br>In the entire, thankfully short running time of ninety minutes, there is only good joke: Two cops peel off the prize stickers on their fast-food drinks. First: “Maybe I’ll win the ten million bucks.” Second: “What would you do with the ten million bucks? And don’t say you’ll buy the Cleveland Cavaliers”. Now that’s funny. And that’s it.
This is the sort of film that doesn’t infuriate you with its worthlessness. Rather, you wonder what, exactly, the minds behind the mayhem were thinking. This is the sort of movie where you writhe in your seat after yet another reaction shot following a joke is met with stone silence in the theater, and every set piece of physical comedy is punctuated by fast-driving heavy metal to remind you to laugh at their ‘incorrigible antics’. The film is so listless and unfunny you find yourself gazing at the corner of the frame during the more ‘hilarious’ scenes, looking at the hometown extras, wondering if one of them is the director’s sister or the producer’s son. Did they know how awful the final results would be as they stood in the background, pretending to laugh at these stale gags?
A bawdy farce with an ensemble cast of ‘lovable crazies’, the movie conjures memories of the deathless “Police Academy” series, and makes you realize just how underrated those and other comedies made in the eighties really were. They may have few redeeming qualities, but they do have a slickness and a polish to them and, especially when placed alongside twaddle like “Super Troopers”, you realize that in most cases comedies are best made by studios and not by indie filmmakers. Very rarely will an indie film prove funnier than a Hollywood production, mainly because amateur comics are usually untrained actors with no sense of timing who tend to be milking material that was funny back when they were in college riffing with buddies over a six-pack. Unlike most indie dramas, which tend to be much better than their bloated Hollywood counterparts, indie comedies don’t survive budget cuts. With apologies to Kevin Smith, you get what you pay for.
For example, the other night I caught “Free Enterprise” on cable, another indie comedy made by a few overarticulate white guys who looked they met at some East Coast liberal arts day camp, and I was amazed, first, how sharp a lot of the dialogue was, and, second, how nearly every funny or insightful line was almost completely muted by the amateurishness on display by the cast and crew. Pure comedy— by which I mean a film with little dramatic content, scant attention to form, made exclusively for laughs— is a weak, sickly category of independent cinema right now. Maybe the next wave of genuinely innovative indie films will arrive when the truly talented comedians stop taking the paychecks to write for television and start giving indie comedies a much-needed injection of professionalism. Until then we’ll keep getting witless bongheaded trash like “Super Troopers”. |
