For promising social commentary but delivering little more than stoner hijinks and gratuitous nudity, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay earns runner-up on our list. In a particular egregious display of gratuitous nudity, the camera travels through the party as the pair and Raza discuss key plot points, lingering over the naked crotches of the female partygoers. It turns out that Raza has come up with his answer to topless parties: bottomless parties. One scene in particular lands the comedy firmly at number 2 on our list.Īfter escaping from their extremely brief captivity in Guantanamo Bay, Harold and Kumar find their way to Miami, where they crash their friend Raza's party. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay's exploitative elements go beyond its attention-grabbing title.
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Instead, Harold and Kumar spend about five minutes of screen time trapped in the prison before they promptly escape, addressing none of the thorny social and moral issues around the prison and its detainees. The sequel's bold title promised to redress the horrific human rights violations occurring at the Guantanamo Bay via the comedy stylings of two chronically stoned slackers. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo BayĪudiences loved the antics of stoner duo Harold and Kumar in their first feature film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, so the pair decided to re-team for a cash-in sequel, 2008's Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. (Although “just say no” is not one of them.) And it will certainly spark the interest of teenage stoners who've worn out their DVD copies of Dude, Where's My Car? and are now desperately searching for another fix of sex, drug and poop jokes.2. It features a couple partially appealing, partially intelligent main characters. Comic lowlights include the now standard-issue bathroom stall-set “poop and fart” noise montage and a bunch of marijuana jokes that were funnier 30 years ago when Cheech and Chong made them.Īs dumb-ass, dope-smoking comedies go, Harold and Kumar is more or less successful. When it's spinning off in its own crazy universe, Harold & Kumar has flashes of clever amusement-which only makes it all the more depressing when the film spends most of its time peddling the same old rude 'n' crude jokes. comes Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, which follows two likeable underdogs who set out on a Friday night quest to satisfy their craving for White Castle hamburgers and end up on an epic journey of deep thoughts, deeper inhaling and a wild road trip as un-PC as it gets. Cho (from American Pie, Better Luck Tomorrow) and Penn ( Van Wilder, Malibu's Most Wanted) are appealing young actors and do what they can to make their characters more endearing than annoying. Harold is an uptight investment banker regularly exploited by his contemptible co-workers, while Kumar is a jaded med school student who'd rather mooch off his father than hit the books. Also interesting is the fact that, aside from their stoner obsession, Harold and Kumar are actually quite intelligent.
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The ethnic angle (Harold is Korean, Kumar is Indian) lends a little diversity and allows for a few self-mocking jokes about racial stereotypes. Our titular toke-takers certainly follow in this grand tradition with a couple vaguely interesting twists. The rest of the brief runtime is eaten up by the string of wacky encounters that befall our hemp-loving heroes on the road to fast food satisfaction.įilm history is filled with “dummy duos”-from Abbot and Costello to Cheech and Chong to Bill and Ted to Beavis and Butthead. In H&K, the titular duo (John Cho and Kal Penn) get wicked stoned and decide to go out for White Castle hamburgers. In Dude, Jesse and Chester (Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott) woke up after a night of hard partying and tried to figure out where they had parked their car. The film comes to us courtesy of director Steve Leiner, who-after years on the sitcom circuit-burst into feature films with the unapologetically idiotic Dude, Where's My Car? His newest outing follows more or less the same roadmap: Two stoner dorks engage in an epic quest to accomplish some simple task. And in this respect, it is a rousing success. HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE (director: Danny Leiner screenwriters: Jon Hurwitz/Hayden Schlossberg cinematographer: Bruce Douglas Johnson editor: Jeff Betancourt music: David Kitay cast: John Cho (Harold Lee), Kal Penn (Kumar Patel), Paula Garcs (Maria), Neil Patrick Harris (himself), David Krumholtz (Goldstein), Eddie Kaye Thomas (Rosenberg), Christopher Meloni (Freakshow), Fred. Yes, it looks rude, crude and incredibly juvenile-but it's trying really hard to be rude, crude and incredibly juvenile. Given this argument, we can't simply dismiss a film like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. If a film is trying its damnedest to gross you out, and it's succeeding ( There's Something About Mary, for example), then it is-for lack of a better word-a “good” movie.
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If a film is trying to be a dumb movie, and it undoubtedly is (like, say, Airplane), then it must be deemed a success.
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and get stoned?”Ī movie succeeds or fails based on its own merits. Cho and Penn spread the racially sensitive message, “Can’t we all just get along.