Publication Date: 08-12-2026

Puddle Cruiser (1996) review

Dir. Jay Chandrasekhar

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★½

This review was originally written in 2018, but unpublished until now.

Broken Lizard’s track record has been a uniformly solid one. Their comedies are always ones I look forward to, even if in recent years it would appear their funding opportunities have been less given underwhelming box office dividends. Unexpected delights like Club Dread, The Slammin’ Salmon, and Super Troopers 2 show their range in concocting outlandish and sometimes screamingly funny premises out of unassuming odds and ends that often leave you surprised at the outcome. Their debut feature, Puddle Cruiser, informally released/screened in 1996 before seeing an official DVD release in 2005 (after Super Troopers and Club Dread gave their moniker some clout), leaves you aghast at the outcome for an entirely different reason.

Let me paraphrase by saying I love and admire the idea of Puddle Cruiser, on top of Broken Lizard’s approach, more than I enjoyed actually sitting through all 98 minutes of Puddle Cruiser. Here’s a film made with the true independent, no-budget sensibility of many first projects. Broken Lizard — comprised of then-college students Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, and (director) Jay Chandrasekhar — formed and shot the film on the campus of Colgate University in New York, from which they would go on to graduate. A documentary included on the DVD release of the film shows them renting and customizing tour buses and organizing free screenings on local college campuses; the film’s cast is comprised of college students, friends, family, and Colgate alums, showing just how makeshift this production was.

You can see on so many occasions just how deep and sincere the drive was for the Broken Lizard quintet to make and sell a movie, showing not simply their abilities but their interest. The hardest part about being young and determined to do big things is finding the time to do them. Ask the aspiring writer you find on a college campus how their novel or screenplay is coming in addition to their class schedule. Ask the D1 athlete who has to find a way to balance classes on top of getting enough reps and performing on the weekend. And ask the theater major how many hours of sleep they got on Hell Week, or another week when they’re putting on a big production for that matter. The fact that these twentysomethings got together and did it displays a drive that goes beyond any star rating, and their success has been shown that they love what they do and are committed to doing it.

But at the end of the day, Puddle Cruiser isn’t that good. Its failures lie in its screenplay, written in perhaps with a bit too much emphasis on collaboration along with the intent of incorporating everyone’s wacky idea into the same movie. Taking place on a college campus, the film revolves around Felix’s (Lemme) relationship with his beautiful classmate, Suzanne (Kayren Butler). Felix is caught in a precarious situation, for he cares deeply about Suzanne, but knows she has been designated as part of the defense team for his friends Matt (Soter) and Grogan (Heffernan), who broke into the campus cafeteria. Felix isn’t entirely innocent in the matter either, but tries to bury his lack of confidence by working through forging a successful relationship with Suzanne, with the help of Zach (Chandrasekhar), giving him advice at every turn. Felix has to figure out a way to get Suzanne separated from her meathead, rugby player boyfriend, while paradoxically trying to be the brutish tough guy he is (that she already seems to be having an aversion to). Yes, Erik Stolhanske does appear, rounding out the five men, but perhaps in the most insufferable role — he plays “Freaky Reaky,” a persistent creep who enjoys leering at everyone he comes across.

You could maybe see why a premise like this doesn’t work all too well just from the fact that there isn’t much of a premise at all. Puddle Cruiser‘s looseness sinks its ability to be creative and wry. Lemme doesn’t seem poised enough to carry such a slight leading role, and even though this is more of a criticism thanks to modern contexts, Heffernan’s Grogan lacks the roly poly charm of Farva, Lars, or characters he’d play in the future. Puddle Cruiser also has that dreaded tendency to linger on a joke long after it stops being funny, assuming it was ever funny at all. The perfect summation of this comes early, when Felix and Suzanne first interact. Suzanne swears that Felix is a dorky kid named Fred Peterson, though he confirms he isn’t. The two nonetheless go back and forth, Suzanne remarking what a dork said Fred Peterson is, and Felix assuring that he is not him. There is too much time, not to mention lame awkwardness, lingering on this one frankly unfunny joke. Even if Broken Lizard was looking to go in the direction of irony — where the joke would be that unlike in real life, where people want to exit out of uncomfortable, false-encounters right away, this moment will have two characters manifest in their own self-created sense of discomfort — it simply doesn’t work given the dead-air that ultimately results.

Puddle Cruiser has an amiable, collegiate aesthetic, which makes its presentation seem more frugal and homey than outright cheap, which is a plus not afforded to all first projects. The screenplay, however, is rife with wear and misuse, right down to the fact that most of the men are interchangeable caricatures and all come off as if they haven’t found their level of comfort in front of the camera yet. I’m glad they eventually found it. I couldn’t sit through another Puddle Cruiser if I tried.

NOTE: Take a listen to my interview with Broken Lizard members Steve Lemme and Kevin Heffernan, where we talk their show, Tacoma FD, Club Dread, and more!

NOTE II: As of this writing, Puddle Cruiser appears only to be available to watch on YouTube, free of charge. It is also available on DVD on websites like eBay (I make no commission on eBay sales of this movie).

Starring: Steve Lemme, Kayren Butler, Paul Soter, Kevin Heffernan, Jay Chandrasekhar, and Erik Stolhanske. Directed by: Jay Chandrasekhar.