Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Directed by Danny Leiner
Written by Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
Starring John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Ryan Reynolds, Anthony Anderson, Malin Akerman
Release Date July 30th, 2004
Published July 29th, 2004
I can’t be the only one for whom the words “From the Director of Dude Where’s My Car” are not reassuring. That said, you can’t judge a filmmaker by his only film. Director Danny Leiner deserves a chance to make a second impression. However, when I heard that his Dude follow-up was called Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, I was less than enthusiastic. From the depths of low expectations can spring something amazing and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle is amazing for the fact that it doesn’t suck.
Harold and Kumar are your typically mismatched pair of lifelong friends. Harold (John Cho) is a neurotic investment banker who is constantly put upon by his co-workers. Kumar (Kal Penn) has a high IQ and the test scores to go to any med school in the country, but he’d rather live off of his dad’s money and smoke some weed.
Well Harold and Kumar have that in common, they both smoke weed and when a White Castle commercial pops up on television they know exactly where to cure the munchies that accompany smoking the chronic. Kumar thinks he knows where the closest White Castle is but you know this is a buddy comedy road movie so this will not be that easy.
On the way to White Castle, Harold and Kumar encounter a group of skinhead extreme sports guys, a backwoods hick with a taste for group sex, an escaped leopard, racist cops and Neil Patrick Harris. Yes, that Neil Patrick Harris in the best of numerous cameos that also include Jaime Kennedy, Anthony Anderson and an unrecognizable Christopher Meloni as the previously mentioned backwoodsman.
The unique thing about Harold and Kumar is the smart satirical way it treats race. Harold is Korean, Kumar is Indian, but neither is defined by their ethnicity. They face racism at every turn and eventually they fight back in funny anarchic fashion, stealing cars, breaking into and out of prison, riding a leopard (see it for yourself).
Cho and Penn are a pair of terrific comic actors. Great chemistry, timing and charm. These two are really likable and you can’t help but cheer for them every humiliating, degrading step of the way. The few scenes they share with Neil Patrick Harris in a cameo as himself are absolutely hysterical. We have seen this type of career send up before, The Simpsons are famous for tweaking an actor’s past persona for ironic laughs, this time it’s somehow fresh and smart. That is because Harris is so committed and Cho and Penn sell the jokes so well.
Director Danny Leiner still has a way to go before we start praising his technique but this is unquestionably an improvement over Dude Where’s My Car. Of course, ninety minutes of blank screen would be an improvement over that film, but I’m trying to pay the guy a compliment. Harold and Kumar is a stoner comedy with all the stoner comedy beats and expected jokes. It’s juvenile and wades into the muck of gross out humor that genre does best.
Harold and Kumar would be valuable for just providing the rare starring role for a Korean guy and an Indian guy. It transcends that because those guys are actually very funny.
