'Slammin' Salmon' serves up marathon of buffoonery

Making a pit stop in theaters en route to perpetual late-night repeats on Comedy Central, the latest comedy from the Broken Lizard troupe is nothing if not consistent: If you got any chuckles from their previous "Super Troopers," "Club Dread" and "Beerfest," it's another good way to kill 90 minutes with the Lizard men.

Armed with another collaborative script and broad-stroke direction by Kevin Heffernan, the Lizard team (Heffernan, Jay Chandresekhar, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske) take over where the Zucker Brothers' comedies like "Airplane!" left off: They've established their own comedic identities, and their guilty-pleasure comedies play well on DVD, especially when there's beer in the fridge.

This time the guys get an energetic boost from Michael Clarke Duncan, the "Third Mile" prisoner who's top-billed here as Cleon "Slammin' " Salmon, a former heavyweight boxing champ turned celebrity owner of The Slammin' Salmon, a trendy Miami seafood spot. In debt to his yakuza connections, he challenges the wait staff (played by the Broken Lizard guys, ably assisted by Cobie Smulders and April Bowlby) to sell more meals in one night than ever before, with a $10,000 prize for the top-selling server.

The contest pits the staff in heated battle, and the ensuing chaos includes amusing roles for stand-up comic Jim Gaffigan, Vivica A. Fox as a cheapskate diva, Lance Henriksen as TV producer "Dick Lobo" (a riff on "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf), Morgan Fairchild as herself, "Heroes" star Sendhil Ramamurthy as a slick movie star, and "SNL" cast member Will Forte, who dines alone for hours before delivering the movie's funniest sight gag.

If you're in the mood for buffoonery, you'll probably enjoy this dumb-but-funny marathon of back-stabbing, physical gags, potty humor and appealing cast chemistry.

Jeff Shannon: j.sh@verizon.net