Louis "Louie" Kritski Jr. (Pesci) is a heartless and greedy New York landlord who refuses to pay for repairs of his building and couldn't care less about the tenants inside. As punishment for his selfishness, he's taken to court by Naomi, a representative of the city's housing authority, where he's sentenced to become his building's superintendent. The sentence basically amounts to house arrest, as he is forced by law to live in his decrepit building for 120 days, unable to leave for anything except to get food, medical emergencies, and matters related to building repairs under the threat of jail time. Compounding the issue is Louie's slumlord father, "Big Lou", who made Louie what he is today and forbids him from making the repairs by threatening to cut him out of his will. When he slowly learns to understand his tenants instead of just demanding rent from them, Louie undergoes a personality change and tries to fight back against his father's wishes.
The Super provides examples of:
- Break the Haughty / Butt-Monkey: Louie suffers a lot as a result of living in his building.
- Cool Car: Louie sports a red 1986 Corvette. The morning after he begins his sentence, he finds that it's been stripped by his tenants. In the end, as he prepares to leave, the tenants are shown to have completely fixed it as an apology gift. It isn't until after he's gone that it's revealed they stole the car from a big, dangerous-looking guy.
- Deadpan Snarker: A lot of characters in the film are pretty snarky:
- For starters, Louie is one of these, big time.
Louie: (after witnessing his sink's water burst up in front of him) Beautiful. A fucking sink that farts.- Naomi is also pretty sarcastic, especially around Louie.
- Big Lou is also shown to be a snarker.
- Tito himself is also pretty dry for someone his age.
Tito: (To Louie) Thank you, massah, thank you massah.- The store manager.
Louie: Let me ask you a question, why is it that you twenty-four different kinds of pork rinds and you only have one kind of peanut butter?Store Manager: Because we don't get too many fussy little white pricks in here.Louie: Okay.- Also Leotha.
Leotha: (pointing out Louie's stripped Corvette) Kritski, looks like your automobile lost a little weight. - The Freelance Shame Squad: Louie becomes the laughingstock of the whole neighborhood after he's been taken down a peg.
- Hated by All: Everyone in Louie's building, as well as the surrounding streets, despise Louie for his selfishness and greediness, mocking him every time they see him. This slowly changes when he grows to understand their problems and takes sincere initiative to fix them.
- Heel–Face Turn: Louie comes to realize how his greediness has affected the tenants of his building, and he slowly but surely changes his ways. The ending reveals that with their help, the entire building has been rebuilt and rennovated from the ground-up.
- Humiliation Conga: Louie suffers a lot in this movie. First, he gets sentenced to live in his own building, his apartment itself being barren, dirty, and vermin-infested. His sink and toilet regularly overflow, the old mattress he tries to sleep on has springs pop out, forcing him to sleep in a zip-up cover. The next day, his flashy red Corvette gets completely stripped by the tenants, his girlfriend Heather leaves him after spending less than 5 minutes in his apartment, and he generally becomes the laughingstock of the whole building for it. When Marlon invites him to play some basketball, he loses against guys that are a lot taller than him and gets laughed at by Tito and his friends for his appearance. Last but not least, he gets scared by a rat appearing right in front of his face while he sleeps.
- Ironic Echo: Louie refuses to care about Eleanor and her grandson Tito's electricity going out and doesn't pay for it to be repaired.Louie: You want your electricity fixed? Move! Check into the fucking Plaza, just gimme the rent, lady!Eleanor: Look at my boy. How's he supposed to do his schoolwork at night? By candle light?Louie: Lincoln did! Hey, maybe he'll grow up to be president, what the fuck do I know? Just gimme the rent!
- It later reverses on Louie when his toilet backs up and needs to use Eleanor's bathroom.
Louie: What do you expect me to do? Shit outside?Eleanor: Lincoln did. (closes the door on Louie). - It's All About Me:
- Thanks to how his father brought him up, Louie has only cared about money and his personal success rather than his tenants' misfortune. His impromptu house arrest gradually helps Louie learn to think of others.
- Louie's dad Big Lou cares only about money and his son going down the same path he did rather than the tenants or his son helping them, to the point where he actively tries to sabotage his son's repairs on the building.
- Jerkass:
- Louie starts off as a rude, snotty, money-grubbing jackass. Thankfully, he changes his ways in the end after slowly learning that his tenants are human beings with their own troubles and not ATMs.
- Big Lou is a even bigger one than his son. He was the one who made Louie what he is today and refuses to allow him to make changes to the building. Not only does he not care about Louie's tenants one bit, but he threatens to cut Louie out of his will if he makes any repairs to the building and treats the tenants with basic human decency. It gets to the point where he nearly pays an arsonist to burn the building down to ensure that his son doesn't succeed in his goals.
- The guys that Louie, Marlon, and Milkman play against in basketball are shown to act like total douches to them, calling them "losers".
- Jerkass Realization: Around the end of the movie, Louie eventually realizes the error of his ways and tries to become more generous to his tenants.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Louie started off as a greedy, selfish, and arrogant landlord, but he starts to show respect and humility to the tenants, and even builds up a good relationship with Tito, acting like a second father to him.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: Louie gets everything that's coming to him after his unrelenting greed and disrespect for his tenants, but he does eventually change his ways.
- Leg Focus: Naomi frequently walks around with a short skirt, showing off her gams.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Louie has this expression when Tito sadly sees him being the only person in the building with a heater and not caring about how the other tenants are freezing.
- Nice Guy: Marlon is a pretty pleasant guy, especially to Louie, who he invites to play basketball. In the end, Louie even promotes him to the new super when his sentence is over.
- Passing the Torch: In the ending, Louie hands his position as the super to Marlon as he leaves his building in the end.
- The Scrooge: Louie, for most of his adult life, was a major cheapskate who refused to pay for his building's damages. His father is a bigger one, since he actively molded Louie into a younger version of himself, and refuses to let Louie spruce up the building by threatening to cut him out of his will.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Since he's played by Joe Pesci, Louie swears quite often.
- Tito is shown to have a pretty foul mouth, even though he's a kid.
Tito: (To Big Lou) Who you calling "buckwheat", you fat fuck? - Women Are Wiser: Naomi is far more sensible than Louie, as she is assigned to make sure he keeps the building up to code and even tries to correct Big Lou about his son's court order.
