It has been nearly a quarter-century since the Vermont Highway Patrol first stumbled into theaters, and the men of Troop 77 are still finding new ways to make a mess of things. "Super Troopers 3," released August 6, brings the Broken Lizard comedy collective back to the badge for a caper that trades the sleepy backroads of Spurbury for an engagement celebration gone spectacularly sideways. Jay Chandrasekhar returns as director and once again plays Thorny, the unit's mustachioed voice of reason - a role that gets considerably more complicated this time around.
The premise, as these things tend to go, starts with romance and detonates into farce. Kevin Heffernan's Farva, perhaps the most reliably obnoxious lawman in American comedy, has become engaged to Sarita, the sister of Thorny's own wife. Hannah Simone joins the cast as Sarita, and the film opens with Farva's wildly over-the-top Indian engagement celebration spiraling into chaos. That cultural collision - one part family obligation, one part Farva being Farva - gives the screenplay its engine. Thorny, horrified at the prospect of Farva becoming family in the most literal sense, launches a scheme to break the couple up. Meanwhile, a pernicious new drug ring demands the squad's attention, which means the troopers are simultaneously sabotaging a wedding and chasing traffickers. The result, per the film's official logline, is a race to save the day - and maybe the wedding itself.
It is a premise that leans hard into what the franchise has always done best: escalating absurdity anchored by genuine affection between the characters. Mac (Steve Lemme), Foster (Paul Soter), and Rabbit (Erik Stolhanske) all return, rounding out the quintet that has been intact since the first film premiered in 2001. Marisa Coughlan is back as Ursula, the former dispatcher whose romantic history with Foster has been a running thread through the series, and Nat Faxon appears as Captain Markowski, adding another authority figure for the troopers to disappoint.
Chandrasekhar, who has directed every installment, has spoken in the past about the difficulty of reassembling a cast that has scattered across television and film work. That the group managed a third outing at all is something of a feat. The Broken Lizard troupe - Chandrasekhar, Heffernan, Lemme, Soter, and Stolhanske - has been performing together since their college days at Colgate University, and their chemistry remains the series' defining asset. Where lesser comedies would simply recycle gags, the "Super Troopers" films trade on the specific rhythms of a group that has been finishing each other's sentences for three decades.
The timing is notable as well. A 2026 release places "Super Troopers 3" more than four years after the COVID-era sequel "Super Troopers 2," which arrived in 2018 after a record-setting crowdfunding campaign. That gap gave the filmmakers room to wait for a story worth telling rather than rush a third entry. The 104-minute runtime suggests a tighter construction than some of the franchise's looser entries, and the addition of a mystery element - the drug ring investigation - gives the plot a spine beyond the sitcom-style set pieces.
Critical reception has been measured. The film currently sits at 6.9 out of 10 on TMDb and 6.1 on IMDb, numbers that suggest audiences are finding plenty to enjoy even if the film is unlikely to convert skeptics. That is roughly the franchise's historical register: beloved by its devotees, dismissed by those immune to the appeal of grown men screaming "meow" at motorists.
What may prove most interesting is how the film handles its cross-cultural material. Farva's engagement to Sarita introduces a new comic dynamic to a series that has largely confined itself to small-town Vermont law enforcement. Simone, best known for her work on television comedy, is a seasoned performer capable of grounding absurdity, and the premise asks the film to find humor in a family's collision with Farva's particular brand of chaos without turning the wedding itself into the joke. Whether the film sticks that landing will shape how it ages.
For now, "Super Troopers 3" exists as a reunion and a reintroduction: the same familiar incompetents, one more catastrophe, and a wedding that no one involved seems entirely sure they want to attend. The troopers have been called to serve before. This time, the call comes with a guest list.
