Super Troopers (2001)

Super Troopers is a 2001 comedy film directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, written by and starring the Broken Lizard comedy group (Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske). Marisa Coughlan, Daniel von Bargen and Brian Cox co-star while Lynda Carter has a cameo appearance. In total, Fox Searchlight paid $3.25 million for distribution rights of the film and grossed $23.1 million at the box office.

The film takes place in 2000 in the fictional town of Spurbury, Vermont, near the Canadian border. The plot centers on five Vermont state troopers who seem to have more of a knack for pranks than actual police work. The experienced troopers, Thorn, Mac, and Foster, spend most of their time devising new ways of messing with the heads of the people they pull over and hazing the new recruit, "Rabbit". They also find time to torment their easily infuriated radio dispatcher, Rodney Farva, who has been exiled from patrol work because he was involved in a fight with several students during a (potentially questionable and dubious) traffic stop of a schoolbus, which is later revealed during the credits. Their days of pranking and slacking off are cut short when the troopers suddenly find themselves trying to avoid having their post eliminated by the state's impending budget cut â?? resulting in their transfer, or quitting and opening up a roller disco. The troopers have an ongoing rivalry with the Spurbury Police Department, Spurbury's local police. They repeatedly enter conflicts with them ("highway cops versus the local cops"); one such dispute breaks out into an all-out fistfight, further increasing the station's chances of being shut down. Their chances to keep their station rise when they uncover a potential drug-smuggling ring. When they suspect a connection to a murder investigation by the local police, highway Captain O'Hagan tries to get local police chief Grady to cooperate, but fails to do so as Grady wants the highway station shut down so his station can have a bigger budget. During this time, Foster secretly develops a relationship with the local police dispatcher Ursula, where together they find a stash of confiscated marijuana hidden in the local impound. Ursula suggests stealing the marijuana from the impound and show it to the governor (Lynda Carter) during a banquet so they can convince her to keep their station open. However, Grady finds out about their plan and shows the marijuana to the governor himself during the banquet, which puts Foster and Ursula at odds with each other due to him assuming she informed Grady. Defeated, the defrocked troopers learn that it was Farva, not Ursula, who informed Grady in exchange for a position at the local station. Farva took the position out of feeling disrespected, but wants to make amends. They find out that the local police station actually runs protection for the drug smugglers. Together, along with Ursula, they dispatch the corrupt policemen and smugglers. The film's epilogue finds the highway post still eliminated due to the budget cuts. Three months later, Thorn and Rabbit are working as beer delivery men. They go to a house party run by a set of college kids they arrested for marijuana possession at the beginning of the movie. The college kids, who are underage, are at first panicked to see them, but become relieved when learning they got fired, and take the opportunity to pester them as payback for earlier treatment. Thorn and Rabbit take off their delivery clothes to reveal they are actually Spurbury police officers, having replaced their corrupt predecessors along with the others, and are now free to continue their shenanigans.