It says something about filmmaker Steven Brill’s body of work (“Mr. Deeds,” “Little Nicky”) that “Without a Paddle” proves to be the most mature, profoundly intelligent comedy of his career. Truly. And compared to a rickshaw, this Yugo rides like a dream.

So Brill hasn’t set the bar especially high for himself — “Without a Paddle” still has enough zany, low-brow bounce to top his usual slop with relatively little effort. Conceived as a comic alternative to such butchy bonding sagas as “Stand By Me” and “Deliverance” (Burt Reynolds even has a bit role), it tells the story of three dissatisfied 30-year-old men who fulfill the dying wish of a childhood friend by embarking on a rafting trip down Washington’s Columbia River to look for D.B. Cooper’s mythical lost loot (the real Cooper parachuted out of an airliner with $200,000 in cash and went missing in 1971).

Jerry (Matthew Lillard from “Scooby-Doo”) is a reluctant corporate drone wilting under the glare of his impatient, marriage-minded girlfriend. Tom (“Punk’d” field agent Dax Shepard) is a beer-swilling ne’er-do-well who blames his deadbeat father for his lack of ambition and focus. Dan (Seth Green from “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me”) is a runtish, insecure physician who can’t score girls.

In short, they all lack something. They’re like Dorothy’s motley traveling companions in the “Wizard of Oz” — except the Yellow Brick Road is a Class 5 rapid and the Wicked Witch is a pair of mullet-wearing pot farmers on ATVs.
Brill, directing from a so-so script by Jay Leggett and Mitch Rouse, will probably never be an elite comedy director — not with Adam Sandler woven into his filmmaking DNA — but he knows how to wring tacky laughs out of tacky scenes, including one hilariously homoerotic moment when the elements force the guys to huddle together like wet puppies, to the tune of R. Kelly’s “Bump and Grind.” There’s also a pleasing, if totally puerile bit involving a pair of tasty, tree-hugging hippie babes.

The actors — each cast for his essential goofiness, it seems — are likable enough in what proves to be a fairly harmless drunken frat-party love fest. They brave the white water, grouse about their girlfriends and families, sing along to .38 Special and reminisce endlessly.

Neither the writing nor the direction is good enough to make us relate all that strongly, but we are vicariously amused, and the movie, for all its flimsy Gen X angst, doesn’t go all the way up the creek.