SUPER TROOPERS - REVIEW

These past couple of weeks, which saw the Broken Lizard gang start a campaign on Indiegogo.com to produce a sequel to their 2001 cult comedy Super Troopers, certainly showed that the film definitely did have an audience as the comedy team reached their £2M goal within only a day.

So, before Super Troopers 2 gets truly underway, I thought I'd look back at the first film to check that it does still hold up.

Alright meow, first things first, while the film could most definitely be described as a stoner cop comedy, its writing is sharp and funny enough to work as just an all around great comedy so if drug humour and/or you're not a Police Academy superfan, fear not: you're in safe hands. The plot sees a group of goofy, juvenile state troopers face off against the local police department (led by the late, great Daniel Von Bargen) when a potential weed-trafficking ring is discovered in Vermont. The state troopers' Captain (a perfect Brian Cox) informs them that any screw-up in this case could cost them their jobs but the gang find themselves conflicted between securing said jobs and messing around, setting up all sorts of pranks or flying off the handle as officer Farva (Kevin Heffernan), the gang's black sheep, does when ordering a "litre o' Cola" in a fast-food restaurant.

The film works as well as it does thanks to its instantly likeable characters (even the side-characters are gold) but mostly thanks to a tight, hilarious script penned by the film's director and co-star Jay Chandrasekhar. Much like in Dumb & Dumber, where basically every joke is memorable and hits the mark, Super Troopers is constantly very funny and surprisingly clever when tackling some very silly and ridiculous scenarios. You wouldn't expect a movie in which someone is shaving-creamed from head to toe in a locker and a blow-up sex doll pretty much (spoilers?) saves the day to really try anything too special but Chandrasekhar and his team of loveable goofballs somehow managed to put together a pretty perfect comedy and have a clearly awesome time doing so.

Super Troopers, years after its release, was branded as something of a cult gem and it's easy to see why: from start to finish it is one stupidly fun roller-coaster ride packed with endlessly quotable lines and classic random moments including the best use of the word "shenanigans" in years, the only known use of the word "Afghanistanimation", a tense maple syrup-drinking contest and a bear-f***ing scene.

I, for one, highly recommend you check out Broken Lizard's opus, which still holds up, and support their upcoming sequel.

This is, indeed, a moustache ride worth taking.