Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
Director: Jon Hurwitz and Hay Schlossberg
Release Date: April 25, 2008
Running Time: 102 min
MPAA Rating: R
Distributor: Warner Bros

- - -

Review by Jeremy Welsch

- - -

Man, these guys have had a rough couple of days.

Picking up immediately at the end of the first movie, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay does not waste any time getting back into the story. Having just professed his affection for his neighbor Maria, Harold (John Cho) decides he and Kumar (Kal Penn) need a vacation. This is a stoner movie, so it makes sense that they end up trying to go to Amsterdam. Each of the guys has his own agenda for wanting to be there. Harold doesn’t want to be apart from Maria, who just happens to be there on business, and Kumar wants to be for the same reason as most of the people who travel there: legal marijuana. So here we are, staring down the barrel of inevitability at the sequel to a story about a couple of pot smokers as they head off to Amsterdam. The very idea is obvious and lame. But lo and behold! Something original happens - they don’t make it there. Why? Because Kumar cannot wait for landing to partake in his favorite herbal enhancement and somewhere along the way they are suspected of being terrorists and get sent to Guantanamo Bay.

After a very short stint at Gitmo, the guys escape by simply walking out and catching a boat to Miami. They track down a former classmate conveniently living in the area and embark on a trek to Texas to enlist the help of Kumar’s ex-girlfriend's fiancé, who may be able to use his Washington connections to help the guys out. Sounds simple, but in true stoner movie fashion, the quest is anything but. Along the way their encounters include, but are not limited to, a bottomless party (both male and female), their infiltration of a KKK rally, an inexplicable meeting with a drug-addled Neil Patrick Harris on his way to a whorehouse, and getting high with President George W. Bush.

Believe me when I tell you: those aren’t even the most potentially offensive parts of the movie.

As much as I hate the term, a movie like this is almost critic-proof. Because it's the sequel to a story featuring established and popular characters, it barely matters how stupid the movie is, the target audience will see it anyway. The only thing is, this one is actually pretty good. By good, I mean funny. And by funny, I mean horrendously offensive. I almost used the term politically incorrect but that term doesn’t apply here. Believe it or not, this movie has something to say about a lot of things, not the least of which is racial and social profiling. At one level, you have your garden variety slapstick, gross-out, pot-smoking humor but on another level, the movie works as a blazing commentary on our nation's prejudices. I will not waste anyone’s time getting too deep into the discussions presented in the movie – those can be debated by the people the message is intended for in the first place. The movie definitely picks a side but the satire is masked by its own idiocy so as not to be too preachy.

I had minor issues with the movie itself, but those criticisms are petty and unfair. Like the demographic of the passengers in the plane on its way to Amsterdam seemed grossly out of place. Having never been there, I cannot speak first hand as to the type of passenger who should be on a plane headed towards that particular destination - I just imagined it being different than it was in the movie. And as I mentioned, the actual escape from Guantanamo Bay seemed overly simplified. Like I said, petty, but worth noting.

All in all, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay held on to what worked in the first film and scrapped what didn’t. Former Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry as an overzealous and under-informed Homeland Security agent cracked me up every time he appeared on screen. And as easy and logical decision as it would have been to bulk up Neil Patrick Harris’ part in this movie, the filmmakers wisely chose to use him again in small doses, foregoing the idea that more is better. Lord knows the last thing this audience needs is to be overstimulated.

And there’s the rub.

Film Rating: *** out of ****

Official [ Movie Site ]

x

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Add Comment