Movie: ‘Super Troopers 2’

By John Mulderig

NEW YORK (CNS) — Imagine being confined for about an hour and a half in the boys’ locker room of a high school attended exclusively by dullards, and you’ll have a sense of what it’s like to sit through the obnoxious ensemble comedy “Super Troopers 2” (Fox Searchlight).

Coarse talk and horseplay predominate in this follow-up to the 2002 original, directed by Jay Chandrasekhar.

The slapdash plot rests on the premise of a shift in the border between the U.S. and Canada. Intensified security, it seems, has led to the discovery that some of the stone markers delineating the boundary are not where they were thought to be. This means that an entire town will soon be moved from the jurisdiction of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to that of their Vermont counterparts.

Kevin Heffernan, Jay Chandrasekhar, Erik Stolhanske, Paul Soter and Steve Lemme are pictured in the movie “Super Troopers 2.” The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. (CNS photo/Fox)

To handle the handover, Green Mountain State Governor Jessman (Lynda Carter) inexplicably rehires the band of nitwits — Thorny (Chandrasekhar), Farva (Kevin Heffernan), Mac (Steve Lemme), Foster (Paul Soter) and Rabbit (Erik Stolhanske) — who peopled the first outing and who have been working in construction since being fired from the force. (These actors also share the writing credit under the name of their comedy troupe, Broken Lizard).

Instead of cooperating with the local Mounties, Archambault (Will Sasso), Bellefuille (Tyler Labine) and Podien (Hayes MacArthur), the troopers, led by their commander, Capt. O’Hagan (Brian Cox), quickly sink into a rivalry with them. This largely consists of an exchange of sophomoric practical jokes — the same kind of tricks the Vermonters are already fond of playing on one another.

Oafish Farve, meanwhile, tries to goad Rabbit into turning their shared romantic interest in local beauty Genevieve Aubois (Emmanuelle Chriqui) into a contest to see which of them can be the first to bed her.

Presumably designed to make adolescent boys of all ages snigger, the proceedings cross the line from crude to seamy with a sequence set in the bordello and strip club owned by the burg’s mayor, Guy Le Franc (Rob Lowe), where sex workers of both genders are on offer. Here, too, the newcomers raise hackles, ending up in a fracas with the mostly naked occupants of the place.

The film contains occasional violence with some gore, strong sexual content, including implied nonmarital sexual activity and full nudity, drug use, about a dozen profanities, a few milder oaths and pervasive rough and crude language. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.

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Author: Catholic News Service

Catholic News Service is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ news and information service.

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