Broken Lizard throws a surprisingly affable wedding in Super Troopers 3
The comedy troupe doesn't have much to say about their aging heroes, but their high-spirited silliness suffices.
Photo: Searchlight Pictures
Traditionally, American frat-coded comedies of antics inspire a single less-successful sequel, if that, before moving to TV, either creatively (via in-name-only brand extensions) or spiritually (via the old ways of ’80s comedy preservation: endless superstation airings). But Broken Lizard, the comic troupe best known for the 2002 hit Super Troopers, has never been a fully traditional practitioner of the form. In some ways, the group is more genuinely fraternity-minded than, say, the cast and crew of Caddyshack: They literally met as frat boys at Colgate University, several of their films involve elaborate pranks, and there’s a certain, if not interchangeability, let’s say egalitarian sensibility to their group chemistry. (No Bill Murray or Chevy Chase-style soloist breakouts here, in other words.)
Yet the aggro unpleasantness of an uber-fratty comedy like The Hangover—the rare comedy blockbuster big enough to inspire a trilogy, albeit not a particularly well-regarded one—doesn’t have much place in their movies, whether good, bad, or Beerfest (a movie beyond good or evil). These projects include plenty of vulgar tangents, slapstick misadventures, and, yes, those goofy pranks; men also tend to outnumber women around five to one. But the troupe’s movies have such a disarming affability, and touch just enough cleverness, that in 2026, Broken Lizard can more or less get away with making Super Troopers 3, even (or especially) if their more casual fans have forgotten that Super Troopers 2 existed.
The third installment in this epic series about Vermont state troopers killing time by razzing each other and creating oddball challenges (the ur-text of their existence: slip the word “meow” into as many civilian interactions as possible without ever admitting it) does finally admit to a possible hierarchy within the Broken Lizard ranks, by virtue of its surprisingly irresistible plot hook pairing its two most immediately distinctive members. Farva (Kevin Heffernan), the most cheerfully boorish of the five now-veteran troopers, is poised to marry Sarita (Hannah Simone), the sister of Thorny (Jay Chandrasekhar), the nominal ringleader (though never actual captain) of the group whose status echoes Chandrasekhar’s real-life role as their default director.
To some degree or another, the boys have grown to accept Farva’s outsized, short-fused antics over the years. But the prospect of Farva becoming Thorny’s brother-in-law, all because he rescued his sister from a particularly bad car accident, vexes him to no end. In a perversely endearing touch, it seems to fill Farva with absolute glee. Thorny then endeavors to sabotage their relationship, Super Troopers 3 splitting the difference between classic farce and its mustier equivalent.
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