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Category:    Home > Reviews > Comedy > Chase > Super Troopers (2001/Broken Lizard/Fox Blu-ray)

Super Troopers (2001/Broken Lizard/Fox Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B     Extras: C     Films: C

 

 

Though they have not become runaway comedy troop, the Broken Lizard gang is one that continues to hold in there, able to be as gritty and wild as the Judd Apatow/Greg Mottola and have their act together.  Perhaps they are considered more subversive, which might be why people in the know are still talking Jay Chandrasekhar’s Super Troopers (2001), which seems to have been actually delayed a year for its theatrical release.  Maybe it was the events of 9/11 or a conservative mood (release by Fox notwithstanding) gave its release bad timing, but here it is on Blu-ray already and it is an interesting comedy for sure.

 

No, it is not great (part of its appeal?) and there are funnier films out there, yet the goofiness displayed with the police and criminal drug use on the part of those being chased has some throwback feel of the 1970s bandit/chase cycle.  Those films often featured inept cops (think Jackie Gleason or Clifton James) and here, we get a whole team of them, stuck in the middle of nowhere, not having to really do (except goof around) anything until “events” force them to go to work.  It plays like an edgier version of the popular Reno 911 with less restraint.


So this lands up being one of the few hard-R rated leave your brain at the door films anyone has done well in years and on that grindhouse level, the appeal is understandable.  If you do not have high hopes, you will be amused.  To day much more would ruin any laughs, but if you like this kind of film, you’ll want to catch this one at least once.

 

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 AVC @ 30 MBPS digital High Definition image was shot on 35mm film by Director of Photography Joaquin Baca-Asay, whose camerawork here has better composition and blocking than you usually get in films like this; one of the reasons it works better than most of its competition.  Baca-Asay has moved on to work with serious directors like Mark Romanek and is now James Gray’s current cinematographer (see the Blu-ray review for We Own The Night) next lensing his film Two Lovers.  This transfer is a bit softer than I would have liked, but is pretty good otherwise.  The DTS HD Master Audio (MA) lossless 5.1 mix is also not bad, but shows the limited budget on the film, plus how joke and dialogue-based this really is, sounding as good as it is going to get.  The band .38 Special actually did the score.

 

Extras include the original trailer, a drinking game, PIP commentary, stand alone featurette, Outtakes & Deleted Scenes (including Alternate Ending) with optional audio commentary and two feature-length audio commentaries.  One is with Chandrasekhar and Co-Writer/Co-Star Eric Stolhanske, the other with cast members Kevin Heffernan (who also co-wrote the script for this film), Steve Lemme & Paul Soter.

 

A sequel is in the works for a 2010 release, so you might want to see this now in advance of that.  Hopefully, it will be better than Chandrasekhar’s Dukes Of Hazzard revival and all will get back to raw basics.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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