Film Review: Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

nobody@vox.com(Life With Cats) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:34:53 -0700

Having not seen their first one, I really wasn't sure what to expect from this film, other than an Asian guy and an East Indian guy doing drugs and acting funny. The 18A rating should have tipped me off.

So Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are mistaken for terrorists on a plane to Amsterdam and sent to Guantanamo Bay. They escape and have some crazy adventures trying to get their lives back. There is mucho full-frontal female nudity, fake full-frontal male nudity (of course), a very bigoted Home Security-type official hunting the boys down, Neil Patrick Harris as himself and ... George W. Bush. I don't think there's an American film being made today that does not have a version of the President in it.

The trailers I saw of this film are really quite funny. Unfortunately all the funny parts are in the trailers. There are only so many getting-stoned jokes one can make. The Home Security guy insults many different races with the most offensive "jokes" you can imagine, but the writers (whose only experience is with the Harold and Kumar films) just sound desperate to wring a laugh out of their wanting script. Apparently black people really love grape pop. Didn't know that.

Of course they meet the President, who coincidentally loves his pot too. Oh yeah, each boy has a love interest they get in the end, because that's something else no film dares go without. And that's hardly a spoiler since hey, of course they get the girls. Otherwise it would be Harold and Kumar Do Away With Paint-By-Numbers Scripts.

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