Quasi

2 outta 5

Quasi, the latest film from comedy troupe Broken Lizard (Super Troopers), is not exactly consistently hilarious. Or even providing a solid amount of laughs. It is, however, admirably dopey, and intermittently amusing. It does owe a bit to Monty Python’s Holy Grail where there’s bursts of comedic violence in a Medieval setting, but that’s as close as it gets. Quasi is dumb, yet breezy, comedy providing dumb, yet breezy, sparse laughs. There’s funnier stuff available from Broken Lizard, too. This has some moments, although not nearly enough.

Quasi Modo (Steve Lemme), a Hunchback living in Medieval France, is a working torturer along with his buddy, Duchamp (Kevin Heffernan, who also directed). Even though he’s just trying to make an honest living torturing people, Quasi is constantly belittled by folks on the street for his giant Hunchback and patronized by his torturer boss, Lucien (Paul Soter). One day, Quasi is given a winning lottery ticket by Duchamp which entitles Quasi to meet King Guy (Jay Chandrasekhar), Queen Catherine (Adrianne Palicki) and have a meeting with the visiting Pope Cornelius (also Soter). But, surprisingly, the King tasks Quasi with killing the Pope. Even more surprising, when Quasi meets the Pope, the Pope tasks Quasi with killing the King. Also, Quasi is starting to become closer with the Queen and all of this good luck is alienating Quasi from his best friend, Duchamp.

The movie does have some unexpectedly funny one-liner or brief bits. (Which isn’t the best batting average when it’s trying to deliver a laugh each line.) There’s a speech Michel (Erik Stolhanske), another friend of Quasi and Duchamp, makes about how even though Quasi and Duchamp have been fighting, Quasi deep down is Duchamp’s friend and has to help him. There’s a dramatic push in on Quasi and then he says simply “%$%$ him!” and walks away. That is a fantastic joke and could have left it there. Unfortunately, the film undermines its own fantastic joke by having Quasi show up and try to rescue Duchamp from being publicly executed.

Most of the funniest lines are uniquely deployed and anachronistic f-bombs. When the King is trying to get the Pope to drink some wine and the Pope goes off on how he needs a goblet and the King just says, frustratedly, “The crystal glass right $%$#ing there!” There’s no attempt at period realism, which is fine in a comedy, and everyone talks like modern day folks. The brief concession to period accuracy is once in awhile people say “Merde”. A unique relationship in the film is the hateful bickering between the King and the Pope, and that is given a new dimension in the movie’s closing moments. Another unique relationship is between Quasi and the Queen. Palicki has some good bits as the Queen who is mostly regal but finds herself unexpectedly attracted to Quasi. When it’s revealed they are cousins and she says she realized she was attracted to him because they share the same blood, and there’s a few choice quips about royal in-breeding creating freak kids. Quasi and the Queen have a romantic encounter that features the Queen enjoying being tied up on a torture rack and some gross out gags involving Quasi’s hump.

Lemme is likable as Quasi. His funniest moment is when he ends up with two knives attempting to assassinate both the King and the Pope as he bobbles back and forth like a dummy. Lemme also has a small part as the King’s Fool who is repeatedly beaten up. All the Broken Lizard cast play multiple parts. Some cast members such as Soter as Quasi’s boss and the Pope effectively pulls it off. But some are more recognizable in dual bits than others. Heffernan not only plays Quasi’s buddy Duchamp but he also plays the King’s assistant, Henri. A scene when Duchamp and Henri are talking to each other features some decent visual effects trickery but, aside from a fake moustache on Henri, it’s easy to spot they’re the same guy. Although it is kind of meta-amusing that Heffernan’s Henri orders the torture of Heffernan’s Duchamp in an incredibly gross, cartoonishly outlandish physical bit.

There’s a running gag throughout Quasi about the exceptional amount of torture and casual violence in the world, which is sometimes darkly funny. There’s a bit involving the torturers casually chatting about the weekend while they stop and holler at their victims. A moment when the King commands a random guard to kill the other guard has the guard complaining that they came up as squires together. But the guard goes through with killing his buddy, but the shot lingers on him looking sad. Dark joke but kind of amusing. One character’s dying wish is to be buried deep enough so animals don’t get to him, but Quasi and Duchamp do a terrible job burying him and in the post-credit scenes animals are pecking at his grave. Kind of an obvious set up but it works well enough.

Quasi could be more consistently funny, and there are long stretches without any laughs as jokes fall flat. But it does have a few unexpectedly funny bits that work well. Overall, this is a low-key Medieval farce that gets in a good quip every once in awhile.