Quasimodo (Steve Lemme) is just an average hunchback in medieval France. He and his hut-mate Duchamp (Kevin Heffernan) have a decent job as torturers for King Guy (Jay Chandrasekhar) and Quasi has even shown promise in the gig as the inventor of a new torture device called “the Rack.” But thanks to a winning lottery ticket, Quasi soon finds himself caught in the middle of two dueling assassination plots between the King and Pope Cornelius (Paul Soter), plots that may include the murder of Queen Catherine (Adrianne Palicki), whom has taken a strange liking to Quasi.
Such is the setup for the historical comedy Quasi, a send-up of Victor Hugo’s classic novel The Hunchback Of Notre Dame from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Storywise, Broken Lizard has built a fine tale here. The plot progresses based on how the characters are defined, not so much by the whims of where a joke could lie. Things like the jealousy of Heffernan’s Duchamp towards Quasi’s apparent good luck that leads him into the plot’s palace intrigue feels more organic rather than just a call back to the jerky state trooper character that the actor played in the group’s two Super Trooper films.
But that also straitjackets the film in a way, cutting off certain avenues that the group can go down for laughs. One of the strengths of some of Broken Lizard’s previous films like both Super Troopers films and to a lesser extent Slammin’ Salmon, is that they are hang out films. The characters are (mostly) friends and the jokes come from the fun they are having just hanging around each other. By extension, we the audience have fun too. And there are fun moments here in Quasi, just not enough. Casual jokes tossed off about the torture business, including a character whose job is to be the test subject for newly devised torture methods, yield some laughs. But other gags, like the over-pronunciation of certain French words, feel more lazy. Even with the five Broken Lizard guys taking on multiple roles, aided by a collection of wigs and fake facial hair, fails to energize the proceedings the way it would for the members of Monty Python, whom Broken Lizard seems to be channeling inspiration from here.
As the story twists and turns, the plot moves into what could have been full-on farce territory as Quasi conspires with Catherine to fake his own death and escape France while Guy and the Pope spar back and forth. But the group barely rises to the comedic occasion, keeping the energy at a more casual, laid back level rather than slowly building on what has come before. Ultimately, this leaves the film’s climax, while containing some funny moments, feeling a bit small when compared to the larger canvas of chaos that something like Super Troopers or their horror spoof Club Dread ended with.
