The comedy troupe known as Broken Lizard hit big with the way too funny Super Troopers in 2001 and rightly so – it was a damn funny film with some truly hilarious moments and some definite stand out characters. While Club Dread didn't meet with the same acclaim when it hit theaters in 2004, it too was a decent movie that took the troupe's work in a very different direction. It all started in 1996 though, with a little known film called Puddle Cruiser.

The movie introduces us to five guys who all go to college together and hang out regularly. One of the guys, Felix Bean (Steve Lemme), is introduced to a girl named Suzanne (Kayren Butler) while at a keg party one night and while she's attached to her snooty high school sweetheart, Traci Shannon (the guy with two chick names played by Jamison Selby), he decides to move in for the kill and see what happens. Ever since his friend Zach (Jay Chandrasekhar) pointed her out to him and told him that she was the student body president that night, he's been a little obsessed. While nothing goes Felix's way the night of the party, he gets a second shot when their mutual friend Emily (Alison Clapp) manages to get them some alone time at the annual Northern Lights Party, where students stand around outside while drinking and looking up at the sky.

Suzanne and Felix start to hit it off a little better the second time around and soon enough, they go out for a dinner date. This is Felix's big 'in' with Suzanne but as can be predicted easily enough, it doesn't work out as well as he'd hope and he spends the rest of the movie trying to get the girl while avoiding her boyfriend and getting involved in some goofy college pranks along the way.

Puddle Cruiser is not an original film, nor does it try to break any new ground. It isn't nearly as laugh out loud funny as Super Troopers nor is it as just plain weird as Club Dread. In fact, compared to those two later films, Puddle Cruiser is, quite frankly, a little on the dull side. Judged on its own however, and looked at for what it is and not for what it would spawn a couple of years later, and it does have some interesting characteristics.

There are some parts of the film where the Broken Lizard guys just don't seem to have their comedic timing down, but Chandrasekhar does manage to get in some really clever lines throughout the film, most of which seem to be taking pot shots at his good buddy Felix. The film also benefits from some interesting supporting characters, notably Freaky Reaky (Erik Stolhankse) the mailroom stoner, and Grogan (Kevin Heffernan) and Matt (Paul Soter) the two kitchen raiding miscreants. It's these supporting characters and Chandrasekhar's dry sense of humor that make the movie worth checking out. Unfortunately the two leads, while likeable enough, are a bit too 'cookie cutter' to make the story as interesting as one might hope and that does hurt the movie a bit.

As a first time independent comedy, however, Puddle Cruiser does have enough to offer fans of romantic comedies (that's right, I said it, this is definitely a romantic comedy and certainly qualifies as a date movie) that it's worth considering. It isn't nearly as good as what would come out of it, but it has its place in the grand scheme of things and serves as an okay time killer.

Video:

The (sadly, non-anamorphic) 1.66.1 widescreen transfer on this DVD is decent, but it isn't going to take home any awards. There's some very heavy shimmering going on throughout the film, which is pretty distracting in some scene. Thankfully, that's the only major problem with the image as although there is some minor print damage here and there, for the most part the picture is quite clean. Black levels stay pretty strong and color reproduction is good. Some fine detail doesn't come through as strongly as it could have but overall, things look okay here.