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| Harold, Kumar stagger back to the big screen | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| By Craig Outhier, Get Out | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| April 24, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Does Willie Nelson keep Visine in his glove box? Creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg - making co-directorial debuts after sharing screenplay credit on the first movie - stick with the formula that made them Hollywood's brashest comedic newcomers. Once again, straight-laced, dependably flustered banker Harold Lee (John Cho) and skirt-chasing slacker Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) embark on an uproariously un-P.C. odyssey across a racially prejudiced American landscape. They even have another bizarre - and indecently funny - encounter with "Doogie Howser" actor Neil Patrick Harris, gamely playing himself as a hallucinating, prostitute-flagellating mushroom freak. There are some not-so-trivial differences. This time, Harold and Kumar aren't jonesing for cheap, square-shaped hamburgers but freedom, dude. Mistaken for terrorists when Kumar whips out a futuristic water pipe on an overseas flight to Amsterdam - "bomb" and "bong" sound so much alike, no? - the duo fall into the clutches of a cartoonishly bigoted Department of Defense flunky, played by former "Daily Show" "faux-espondent" Rob Corddry (awesome, finally, in a role that properly exploits his weird, sado-sinister rhythms). Denied their proverbial "one phone call," Harold and Kumar are shipped to the eponymous detention facility in Cuba - here impressionistically depicted as a festering Third World hoosegow filled with defecating goats and hulking guards. Naturally, they escape in short order, hop a raft to Florida and hoof it to Texas to plead their case to the GOP-connected, preppie-devil fiance (Eric Winter) of Kumar's ex-girlfriend (Danneel Harris). Along the way, they encounter the expected menagerie of rednecks, Klan revelers and inner-city bruisers, but the thing that makes Harold and Kumar sufferable as race signifiers is their low capacity for self-pity. There's no wailing about the injustice of it all. These guys love America, fast-food warts and all. The movie's essential generosity of spirit comes to a ticklish climax when the boys light one up with Dubya himself, played spot-on as a paternally repressed good ol' boy by comic James Adomian. Which isn't to say that social rage doesn't boil under the surface of "Harold and Kumar" - it's just the white, liberal kind. Turning the table on Corddry's character, a fed-up NSA analyst (Roger Bart from "The Producers") lets it fly: "It's people like you who make Americans looks stupid! Well, we're not stupid! And we're not gonna take it anymore!" Moments like that give the sequel a targeted satirical bite that the original lacked. And they serve to argue the filmmakers point: Maybe the war on terror is a laughing matter, after all. The Quick Hit: Mistaken for terrorists, the eponymous, reefer-fancying duo (John Cho and Kal Penn) embark on another hilariously un-P.C. odyssey across a racially-biased American landscape. Just as funny, more satirically-targeted than the 2004 original. Movie review 'Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay’ Cast: John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, Roger Bart, Neil Patrick Harris Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg Rated: R (strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, profanity and drug use) 100 minutes Grade: B Contact Craig Outhier by email, or phone (480) 898-5683 |
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