Harold
& Kumar Go to White Castle (***)
review by Jon
Waterman
Harold and Kumar need to kick back and relax. Harold, as a
number cruncher at some anonymous financial institution, is
constantly being taken advantage of. Kumar is a med student
genius that doesn’t want to enter the field, but has
his doctor father on his back constantly about his failed interviews.
What can they possibly do to relieve their pressure and stress?
Oh, how about some primo weed? But where there’s smoke,
there’s hunger. Only a small food can satisfy a craving
so large. So, they head out to White Castle. What could possibly
go wrong?
The title alone elicited a laugh out of me, but is there more
to pot smoking journey than just a funny name? Yeah. There
is. In order to fully enjoy the movie, you have to completely
throw all realism out the door. Accept that anything can happen,
just go with the flow and relax. After letting go, probably
the most unbelievable thing in the film is that they continuously
run into the same cast of characters repeatedly and hardly
meet anyone new. There are plenty of supporting players to
draw from, but it’s just a little odd that they don’t
let any character go off into nothingness. They always get
a resolution of sorts. That’s not necessary and not usually
funny, either.
Unlike a “Half Baked,” you don’t need to
have experience with drugs in order to really appreciate it
or get some of the jokes. It’s more like “Dude,
Where’s My Car?” (and directed by the same guy – the
good TV director Danny Leiner) in that it seems like it’s
about one thing, but really it takes you in all sorts of unexpected
fun directions. Despite it being a pot movie, it’s not
a pot movie. Sure the plot is driven by marijuana, but the
movie is ultimately about the journey, the friendships and
(surprisingly enough) the trouble with society. As sort of
a reversal of comedic standards, the only people portrayed
in a stereotypical fashion are white people. The film portrays
various races and all the non-whites (including Jews) fail
to conform to the compartments society has placed them in.
On the other hand, white people are seen as unintelligent (the
only group portrayed as such), narrow-minded jerks who think
nothing more than about themselves. It’s a great satirical
move and a lot of legitimately laughs come from it. I particularly
liked the “Extreeeeeme!” guys.
The film shows that you don’t have to be white or black
to effectively carry a movie. In fact, it’d be great
to see this become a growing trend that could freshen up the
Hollywood system a bit. John Cho (Harold) and Kal Penn (Kumar)
have held smaller roles previously and show here that they’re
underused, despite how many films they’ve been in. They’re
probably the only ones that don’t overact. There are
plenty of cameo roles from established names, but they all
take it too far. Anthony Anderson and Neil Patrick Harris (in
the worst bit role since Fred Savage in “Rules
of Attraction”)
make me want to punch things they’re so bad. Ryan Reynolds
(Penn’s co-star in “Van
Wilder”) is pretty
funny as a doctor. However, Christopher Meloni and Jaime Kennedy
steal the show away.
Is it the funniest movie? No. But it is actually funny. And
it’s smarter than it sounds. Comedy is very tough to
pull off. This one works well most of the time, and you can’t
ask for much more than that
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