‘Super Troopers 3’: Broken Lizard Stays the Same and Gives Us More Shenanigans
While the laughs may not flow as much as the first two films in the franchise, the Broken Lizard crew still gives us a hefty dose of shenanigans with Super Troopers 3.
The world may have changed significantly, but there’s something so comforting in seeing the Broken Lizard crew staying exactly the same as when they released Super Troopers to the world in 2001. Twenty-five years after the original, they are still doing the same ol’ shenanigans with Super Troopers 3, a movie that maintains the group’s status quo, but doesn’t offer as many laughs as its predecessors.
The good news, first: this third entry in the cult comedy franchise focuses a lot more on Rod Farva (Kevin Heffernan), as he’s found the love of his life and is ready to get married. The problem? He’s engaged to Sargeant Trooper Arcot “Thorny” Ramathorn’s (Jay Chandrasekhar) sister, Sarita (Hannah Simone), after saving her from a car accident. Thorny is hellbent on stopping the wedding at all costs and attempting to make his highly conservative parents (played by Iqbal Theba and Sakina Jeffrey) see who the “real Farva” is, but his attempts fail spectacularly. If anything, they make him like Rod even more! No one can match his aura.
Now, the bad news: most of the movie doesn’t focus on Thorny’s bumbling failure of a plan to sabotage Farva’s wedding plans, but on a sidequest where the rest of the Vermont State Police, comprised of Carl Foster (Paul Soter), MacIntyre “Mac” Womack (Steve Lemme), Robbie “Rabbit” Roto (Erik Stolhanske), their newly-appointed captain Todd Markowski (Nat Faxon) and rookie Coy Burns (Andrew Dismukes) investigate a drug smuggling operation of “Canadian Crystal.” For a franchise that is mostly-known for their hangout vibes instead of the semblance of a “plot,” there sure is a lot of “plot” in this, and not a very good one at that.
As expected, though, Super Troopers 3 is filled with as much juvenile, stupid humor as you can find. It’s almost beautiful to see that none of the Broken Lizard members, who are nearing the tender age of 60, have meaningfully evolved their art, and prefer to let their inner kids run wild with as much puerile jokes as you can find. While the film is more reliant on plot than usual, it functions best when it moves away from the central mystery to focus on Farva’s wedding (the last part of that sentence is the third entry’s official subtitle).
Whenever it gives us these incredible antics, Super Troopers 3 is a massive laugh riot. There’s a specific sequence involving a snake that had me in stitches, because Heffernan’s abrasive charm never ceases to make me laugh. There’s a certain innocence in seeing him get bit in the neck by a snake, or stabbed multiple times in his body by way of EpiPens to counteract a lobster allergy that makes him look like Frankenstein’s monster. Sometimes, this is all a movie needs to entertain you and activate your mind.
Farva has always been the center of attention of the Super Troopers movies, but he is undoubtedly the protagonist of this third entry. Chandrasekhar, who directs, also gives Mac a more prominent role than in the first two movies. As a result, Super Troopers 3 feels less like a troupe effort, where the bulk of our enjoyment stems from the chemistry that the comedians have together, rather than separately. It’s really about the respective journeys both Farva and Mac undertake in the film, while the other characters serve more as secondary figures in the stories this entry depicts.
One can easily see where this thing is going, especially as it treads narrative beats many of us are already familiar with, and it’s a shame that Super Troopers 3 doesn’t try to push its comedy into raunchier (or naughtier) directions than what’s on screen. That said, Heffernan is so entertaining as Farva that he almost makes you forget how half-baked and undercooked the whole project is. His mere presence elevates the movie, while Chandrasekhar attempts to hide the lack of genuinely original humor on screen.
When the film focuses on Farva, it works like a charm. When it goes in other directions, it doesn’t work as well as it should. Every single joke at Canada’s expense is hilarious. Tkachuk Motors in particular got a big laugh out of me. Every single joke involving an electric car dubbed as “Le Sportif Électrique” is less so. The movie builds towards one bit with a massive payoff, but it also gives us one of the strangest – and bewildering – sex scenes we haven’t seen in a mainline Hollywood film since David Cronenberg’s Crash.
It’s almost a shame to see such recycled, dated jokes with a comedy troupe that has never failed to make me laugh with their most famous characters. No one can fake their banter and penchant for the stupid, and it’s precisely the reason why the Super Troopers have stood the test of time more than anything else Broken Lizard has conceived outside of these characters (remember Quasi? Me neither). Their chemistry, alongside Heffernan’s portrayal of the greatest loudmouth in comedy history, is what makes Super Troopers 3 a breeze to watch, even amid glaring flaws.
They’re the reason why the troopers have stood the test of time, and will continue to do so. Maybe their writing has grown stale and is in dire need of (a slight) evolution, but they should honestly leave it as is. As telegraphed and unimpressive as some of the beats are in Super Troopers 3, there’s an aching sincerity to the movie that is severely lacking in most modern comedies. That sincerity shines through the dynamic among the crew, who are clearly having fun coming up with as many shenanigans as possible to keep us entertained. It’s thus futile to ask them to change, because they never have, and will never kowtow to a more socially acceptable form of “comedy.” In our sanitized, almost puritanical era, such a movie should be cherished, even if it may not be a meow-sterpiece…