REVIEW: Quasi [2023]

Rating: R | Runtime: 99 minutes
Release Date: April 20th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Searchlight Pictures / Hulu
Director(s): Kevin Heffernan
Writer(s): Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter & Erik Stolhanske

Who wants to see an exorcism!!

I don’t think what’s happened with Broken Lizard’s recent output is a coincidence. After five films in fourteen years (six if you count Jay Chandrasekhar’s Dukes of Hazzard), it would take eight before they finished their sixth. That it was Super Troopers 2 says a lot both because it never would have happened without a successful Kickstarter campaign and because it was an already existing IP that the studio could market with ease.

This group has been so good because they were coming up with fresh ideas and environments with which to inject their gross-out, vulgar, and stoner-adjacent comedy. State troopers. Exotic vacation spots. European underground alt-Olympics. An up-scale restaurant. The ensemble was the draw. The plot served them.

Whether the decline in box office success was the culprit or not (The Slammin; Salmon is a personal favorite of mine, regardless), the industry and audiences moved away from their kind of humor. It’s a tough sell now, twenty years removed from the heyday of American Pie, Harold and Kumar, and the like. So, making a sequel becomes less risky than finally bringing the long-gestating Holy Road to fruition.

And, as evidenced by their latest coming right on the heels of Super Troopers 2, so too are adaptations of popular art. Because it doesn’t matter if you’ve read Victor Hugo’s novel or seen the Charles Laughton film. Disney made The Hunchback of Notre Dame a known commodity to American audiences. Quasi is therefore blessed with brand recognition.

I can’t therefore help seeing its creation as bittersweet. I’m ecstatic Broken Lizard is back at it (rumblings of Super Troopers 3 and Weedfest—two more sequels—are bouncing around), but disappointed they’ve had to put the creative ingenuity their early success afforded away. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that both Super Troopers 2 and now Quasi feel less about creating a good joke than they do about getting a green light.

Even at their weakest (which these last two films are), however, you cannot deny the comedians’ charisma or timing. Neither title is a failure as much as being unable to lift themselves higher than the bar of stupidity all Broken Lizard’s films set. Quasi falls prey to it the most because the period concept demands that it be a medieval spoof. Monty Python’s Holy Grail already perfected that.

Bad French accents and torture chamber antics aren’t enough. And while I’ve seen them talk about this being their first “real movie” insofar as focusing on a single character arc rather than ensemble lunacy, I’m not certain that’s a positive. It lets the other cast members have fun with pure villainy (and Chandrasekhar as King Guy and Paul Soter as Pope Cornelius are definitely having fun), but it also limits the scope of where the laughs can go.

That means fewer gags, especially of the outrageous variety. Whereas plot used to serve the comedy, everything now serves the plot. But it’s just your run of the mill zero-to-hero, ugly duckling trajectory. It’s not interesting no matter how game the cast is at pretending otherwise.

So, while I enjoyed myself, I didn’t really laugh. Chandrasekhar, Soter, Steve Lemme (as Quasimodo), Kevin Heffernan (as Quasi’s best friend and the film’s director), and Erik Stolhanske (as the hero’s new friend Michel) are too good not to earn a guffaw here and there purely with line deliveries, but that’s about it.

The script tries to match their inherent craziness, but it all feels handcuffed to a story and progressions that constantly demand less. “Frère Jacques” singalongs and “oysters” as “cake” in the working man’s appeal for wealth equality are cute. So too are torture devices like the rack needing volunteers to be honed and the King and Pope needing tasters to protect them from poisoning by licking all their food first. It’s safe. Obvious.

And that’s the last thing I never thought I’d say about Broken Lizard. So, maybe they’re playing the long game. Maybe they’re accruing Hollywood capital by reminding the people with money that they can turn a modest profit on a small budget before leveraging that truth into something bolder. That’s what I’m going to hope.

Because besides those few good laughs, a game Adrianne Palicki, and an effective scene with Stolhanske getting pelted by blood (as the Pope’s right-hand man since the main quintet each plays two roles), the most memorable bit of all is the gag reel during the end credits. All that’s fine for a one-time weekend stream, but I used to go on opening night to see how much further these guys would push the envelope. It seems they’re currently sealed tightly within.