Super Troopers

I'm fairly picky when it comes to comedies.  There are many reasons for that (discriminating taste, enough intelligence to see punchlines coming, a love of context-based humor, and utter snobbery), but I am usually willing to give a movie the benefit of the doubt and just rip it a new asshole once it's over.  I was definitely prepared to do that the first time I saw Super Troopers.  When a friend brought the DVD over to watch, everyone in the room groaned.  To be fair, that particular buddy has some pretty terrible taste and the television trailer for the movie looked wretched.  I've seen funnier commercials for the ASPCA.  Since my friends and I were open-minded (and we relished the possibility of revoking our friend's movie recommendation privileges), we chose to watch Super Troopers, despite our misgivings.  Good move, young Brian and Friends.

As with most comedies, the plot is pretty basic.  The Vermont State Troopers based in the Canadian border town of Spurbury are on the verge of being shut down, with their responsibilities (and budget) probably going to the jerks in the Spurbury Police Department.  That's not terribly surprising, since these State Troopers spend their time at work fishing, joking, masturbating, and smoking evidence from drug busts.  These amateur cops accidentally stumble into a murder/drug investigation, but can they solve the crime?  And will that be enough to make them look moderately competent?

A: Nope

No, the plot isn't anything special.  What the plot of Super Troopers does is allow the sketch comedy group behind the film, Broken Lizard, many episodic opportunities to crack wise.  Honestly, I usually don't like movies based on sketch comedy because the plots are awful and they are usually filled with a single joke spread over ninety minutes.  **cough, cough, anything originating from SNL in the last eighteen years, cough cough** What I appreciate most about Super Troopers is how well each sketch in the movie is framed.  The officers pull over a civilian and more or less ask each other what pranks they are going to pull this time.

Oddly enough, this is funny with context

It's a simple way to make a movie, but it's damned effective.  My favorite thing about Super Troopers is that the humor is generated within each sketch --- meaning that it isn't random or pop-culture based --- and that helps it stay rewarding even with (especially with) repeat viewings.

Nobody in the cast was going to win an Oscar for Super Troopers, but I thought everyone was pretty good.  The standout actor in this film is definitely Kevin Heffernan as Officer Farva; he has the best lines and perfectly embodies an annoying guy you like to laugh at.  The rest of Broken Lizard all turned in solid performances with their own highlights; Jay Chandrasekhar's ethnic and swinger jokes were great, Erik Stolhanske's rookie was made for hazing, Steve Lemme's Mac was consistently funny (and has both mine and my dad's favorite scenes), and Paul Soter managed to not suck, despite being the character with a romantic subplot.  Brian Cox added some much-needed legitimacy to the film, and he showed off that he can be pretty funny when he wants to be, too.  Daniel von Bargen was solid as the hard-ass Spurberry Police Chief.  Marisa Coughlan might have been in the film to add a romantic interest for Soter, but she pulled off a convincingly strong and likable female character in a movie where that was light years beyond what was required of her.  You might recognize a few other supporting cast members, too.  Jim Gaffigan, before he was famous, had a bit part, as did Lynda Carter (although hers was an "after she was famous" bit part).

Meow!

Philippe Brenninkmeyer, Joey Kern, and that bastard who married Christina Hendricks, Geoffrey Arend, all have minor (but memorable) roles, too.

I simply cannot believe this jackass married a hottie

What makes Super Troopers such a funny movie?  Honestly, I credit Jay Chandrasekhar for editing (and, I suppose, for directing) the crap out of the film.   Every scene has several jokes in it, and most of them are throwaway gags that don't detract from the story.  The weakest parts of the film are the ones that propel the plot forward, but even those have many fun moments.  The best parts are the scenes where the team pulls over drivers.  Maybe it is the perfect cop mustaches.

Maybe it's the material.  Maybe it is because the humor feels original and is usually hard to predict.  Whatever the reasons, I truly appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that went into the post-production on this movie, because it is a lean, mean comedy machine.

After I saw Super Troopers in college, I went home and rented the movie to show off to my family.  Well, not all my family --- mainly my father, who is a very funny man and helped shape my sense of humor.  His immediate reaction to my suggestion was the same as mine: the commercials made it look like crap.  I managed to talk him into watching the first scene, and from there he was hooked.  And when I say "hooked," I mean "having trouble breathing because he was crying from laughter."  To give you an idea of how funny my father found this movie, he decided to try and get my mother (a very generous and nice woman, although not nearly as funny as us male folks) interested in the movie by showing her this scene:

How high off laughter was my dad to think that his wife --- who isn't a big fan of stupid humor --- would watch a scene with a bullet-proof cup and the line "good enough to fuck your mother" and think to herself "Perhaps this is a film I should spend some more time with."  My dad is an idiot.

Is Super Troopers a masterpiece?  Absolutely not.  It's not very clever, the story is weak, and the characters are not very sympathetic.  I absolutely love this movie, though.  It is stupid humor at its best, and varied enough to make you want to watch it again --- and you are rewarded if you do, because the script is jam-packed with half-audible lines and throwaway jokes that you didn't catch the first time through.  This is easily the funniest movie I have seen in the last decade.

For the record, my favorite moment in the movie is when Mac tells Rando to sit down in the diner.  The timing of the syrup bottle is so perfect, it gives me the giggles every time.

Club Dread (Unrated)

The comedy spoof movie sub-genre has always been hit and miss.  Even genre kingpins like Mel Brooks, Jim Abrahams, and the Zucker brothers have had embarrassing missteps (Dracula: Dead and Loving It and Mafia! spring to mind).  Nowadays, the Wayans family has essentially taken over the spoof market; every spoof that has hit theaters in the past ten years has either had a Wayans in it or a writer/director from a Wayans project involved with it.  I have major issues with this trend, partially because I think the Wayans spoofs are lazy, obvious and insulting to my intelligence, and partly because watching there is scientific evidence that they cause massive brain hemorrhages.  My biggest issue with these newer spoofs is that they are mean-spirited.  They don't seem to like the things that they are spoofing, so it becomes an exercise in taunting the spoof subject instead of giving the audience a few laughs and some wink-wink-nudge-nudge moments.

Club Dread is, without a doubt in my mind, the best movie spoof in the past ten years.  There are a few ways that this film separates itself from the pack, and these differences add up quickly to make an important...um...difference.  First and foremost, this is not a traditional spoof. 

Just try to name another movie with watermelon-pretzel sex

This is a genuine blend of a stupid comedy and a slasher movie.  There is a quality horror movie here; Broken Lizard just inserted comedic characters into a horror plot.  That this spoof actually has a plot is another key difference.  Most spoofs use their plot as a loose timetable for them to arrange skits or visual gags.  This movie doesn't work like that.  You won't see any actors impersonating Tom Cruise or making any pop culture references to Paris Hilton here.  Instead, the jokes are almost always character- or plot-based.  Perhaps the most important difference between this spoof and the many others on the market today is the respect (or, at least, fondness) Broken Lizard clearly has for the horror genre.  The quality of the kills is pretty decent, showing some gore and some originality.  That makes this more of a comedic tribute to the slasher pics of the 1970s and 80s than an outright spoof.

Which is good, because the world doesn't need more "Trapped in the Closet" jokes

The movie follows a fairly traditional plot outline.  A group of moderately attractive young singles finds themselves in an isolated location with a mysterious killer on the loose.  The singles in this movie are the Broken Lizard troupe: Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske.  Of course, they aren't terribly attractive, so they get some help from Brittany Daniel and Jordan Ladd. 

"I'm helping"

The isolated location is the island pleasure resort of Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton), a less-successful contemporary of Jimmy Buffett.  The resort has a few hundred twenty-somethings running around, swimming, drinking and having promiscuous sex.  The killer murders the island's staff (which includes the Broken Lizard guys) with a machete and leaves obscure Coconut Pete references as clues for the staff to decode.  As a horror movie, this isn't a great plot, but I've certainly seen worse.  As a comedic plot, there are many opportunities for the cast to mistakenly suspect characters of being the killer, and the resort setting is an easy mark for party and sex jokes.  All in all, the plot is more than strong enough to support the comedic aspects of the film, with a decent horror framing device.

With that disclaimer in place, how good is this movie?  It's pretty awesome.  The mediocre slasher movie elements jump out at you first.  Creative deaths?  Check --- my favorite is when the masked killer puts on a costume (think about that) to participate in a life-sized, alcohol-fueled Pac-Man game.  Gratuitous nudity?  Double check! 

Erotic penis statue?  Triple Check!

It's the subtle comedy that makes this one a winner, though.  Of course, there are big dumb gags (there's good usage of man-gina and a lot of stoner jokes), but the best are the little ones.  When Kevin Heffernan shows up as the replacement masseur for a six-foot Swedish babe, he only points out that he's 6'1".  Because that's why the guys on the island are upset.  And then there is Steve Lemme's pronunciation of "Penelope" as "Peen-elope."  It's so stupid, but this mistake is never pointed out by any characters in the movie, so he just keeps saying "Peen-elope" the entire time.  Or, around the campfire, Paul Soter tells the tale of Phil Colletti, who massacred his friends with a machete and to this day he is known as Machete...no, not Colletti.  Machete Phil, even though it doesn't rhyme.  These clever little half jokes are all over the script and I laugh at almost every one.

Admittedly, most of the masseur gags aren't quite half-jokes

Part of these successful moments is due to the actors' timing, but the rest is due to good direction; Chandrasekhar is a good comedic director, knowing how to milk even kinda funny moments for all they are worth.  He's lucky to have some solid supporting actors, though.  Bill Paxton is awesome as Coconut Pete; his nonverbal acting is top notch and he really does come across as a stoned, has-been rocker when he speaks.  The lyrics and song titles for Coconut Pete songs are so good that Jimmy Buffett even played Coconut Pete songs on his tour that summer. 

"Ponytails and Cocktails" is dangerously on-the-nose as a Buffet spoof

M.C. Gainey has some great lines as the resident tough guy on the island and Samm Levine has apparently progressed from playing a general nerd in Freaks and Geeks to playing a sexually aggressive nerd here.  The bulk of the work, though, falls on the shoulders of the Broken Lizard guys.  This time around, I think that Paul Soter as the DJ/drug dealer has the best not-quite-jokes while Steve Lemme is probably the funniest as the sex-crazed Nicaraguan dive instructor.  Kevin Heffernan is okay as the masseur, but he plays the hero and doesn't get to be as randomly fantastic as he was in Super Troopers.  Erik Stolhanske, though, looks like he enjoys his role as the Fun Police, enforcing free drinks with a Super-Soaker, when necessary.

That's a Super-Soaker.  Probably.

This movie is not flawless, of course.  This marriage between horror and comedy leaves moments where one genre is being sacrificed for the other.  It's not a huge problem for me, mind you, but I understand that argument.  Probably the worst aspect of this movie is the acting of Jay Chandrasekhar.  The man did a pretty good job of directing here, but (according to the commentary) the group decided to give him an annoying accent and goofy hairpiece to help offset his tendency to get stressed when filming.  I'm sure that Broken Lizard laughs at his scenes, but viewers are left on the outside of that inside joke.  Seriously, I wish they had just left him out of the movie entirely.  The ending can be annoying for people looking for a more traditional horror experience, but I've always felt in was in-line with the general feel of Club Dread.  It's stupid and plays on a horror cliche, but it's still pretty funny.

Another horror cliche: watching people watch things

Maybe the key to liking this movie is feeling like you're in on the joke.  If you're walking in to Club Dread expecting a traditional slasher movie, you'll be disappointed.  If you're looking for another straight-up comedy, like Super Troopers, you'll probably still be disappointed.  But if you're in the mood for something different and reasonably clever/stupid/gory, there aren't many better options out there.

The Slammin' Salmon

Comedy troupes are an interesting anomaly in the movie world.  Sure, you have the megastars like Monty Python and...um...well, okay, so there really isn't any other group that has been continuously successful on the big screen.  Some of my favorite groups, like The Kids in the Hall and The Whitest Kids U' Know, have only made one movie.  With that duly noted, I think that it's pretty cool that the guys in Broken Lizard have managed to put out their fifth movie, The Slammin' Salmon.  The group is best known for Super Troopers, but Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske have managed to write, act, and direct (well, Chandrasekhar has) in four pretty solidly stupid (and consistently funny) comedies before this.

The movie takes place in the Slammin' Salmon restaurant, named after owner/professional boxer Cleon Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan).  Basically, Salmon is a moron.  He lost a lot of money gambling and needs the wait staff to bring in $20,000 in one night --- that's about twice as much as the restaurant's best night ever.  To sweeten the deal, a cash prize is offered to whichever waiter makes the most money, while the loser will be pummeled by Salmon.  The wait staff primarily consists of Broken Lizard, with Chandrasekhar playing a mentally ill (but medicated) guy, Heffernan as the wussy manager, Lemme as a failed actor, Stolhanske as a jerk, and Soter as a cook and a twin brother on his first day at work.  There are two waitresses, April Bowlby (the stereotypical blonde) and Cobie Smulders (the smart one), as well.  Obviously, some hijinks must ensue for this to be a comedy, so the wait staff performs some shenanigans and the customers cause problems. 

The supporting cast is fairly noteworthy, with Jim Gaffigan, Will Forte, Lance Henriksen, Morgan Fairchild, Vivica A. Fox, Olivia Munn, and Sendhil Ramamurthy making appearances; fans will also notice a few recurring actors from other Broken Lizard movies playing small roles.  All of these roles are shallow and most are lazy stereotypes, with few generating more than a smirk.  Ramamurthy's reactions to his girlfriend's (Munn's) inanities are mildly amusing, but the other recognizable actors are pretty useless here.  Of these supporting roles, only bit player Michael Weaver really gets an opportunity to be funny. 

That makes sense, though.  Movies about waiters are never about the customers because waiters will deal with dozens of customers per shift.  The main interest has to come from the waiters.  Unfortunately for the viewer, things don't work out so well in that department.  The bizarre mentally unstable performance from Chandrasekhar is probably the best of the bunch; when medicated he is terribly awkward and not funny, but when he's off his meds, he takes on another persona that is much, much more amusing.  Soter is okay in his dual role, but nothing special.  He plays twins for only one predictable joke, too, so he split his efforts for no real reason.  Lemme was decent as an actor, but he wasn't very funny, either.  Stolhanske was just terrible, though.  The two waitresses were inconsequential.  All in all, the wait staff was pretty disappointing.

That leaves the management as the only possible saviors for this movie, and they almost pull it off.  Kevin Heffernan is annoying as the manager, but he is the funniest actor in the group and that makes his scenes more tolerable than they should be.  A lot of his scenes are almost funny, but not quite there.  Luckily, Michael Clarke Duncan ends up carrying this film.  As the almost freakishly large boxer, Duncan dwarfs everyone else in the cast.  His booming voice and (let's be honest) stupid dialogue provide much of the motivation for the other characters.  Their reactions to him and his expectations for them offer a lot of opportunities for humorous interactions and the occasional profane one-liner.  I wouldn't say that his performance would steal the show in any comedy, but it is definitely the bright spot here.

Overall, this was a disappointing directorial debut for Heffernan.  Most of the problems were in the script and this was filmed during the 2008 writer's strike, so they might not have been allowed to improvise or improve their lines.  That doesn't excuse this movie, though.  The premise is uninspired (make money or get beat) and isn't even revealed to the waiters until halfway through the film, for some reason.  The entire first scene with Heffernan as a waiter should have been cut because it isn't funny and has nothing to do with his work as manager.  Soter had no real reason to play twins, but the fact that there are twins makes you wait for a "I thought you were the other one" moment.  That moment eventually arrived, but was not worth the wait.  The acting was competent from most, but only Duncan looked like he was having fun. 

Worse than that, Broken Lizard tried and failed to work outside of their comfort zone.  They are at their best with contextual humor, not one-liners.  I can't tell you how many Super Troopers quotes I have heard, but I can tell you that only people who have seen the movie laugh.  Since the waiters are on their own at each table, there is not much banter between the staff.  This means that the humor has to come from jokes, which Broken Lizard has never excelled at in the past, and certainly failed with here.  The best moments are when the established characters get screen time together, which includes almost all of Duncan's performance (which, I would like to reiterate, was funny).  Had the movie spent more time with the managers or the cooks and less time with customers, this film might have been saved.  Instead, we get a Waiting... knock-off, minus the stupid fun.