Second-Hand Smoke

It was probably a bit naive of me to expect Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay to be equally as good, if not better than its unexpectedly sharp predecessor. Paying for Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (2004) was like buying a bag of middies, only to find out that it was laced with something extra; fresh, vivid social satire on top of simple comedic green. The re-up has a similar but less potent formula, one that doesn't completely fail to do the job, but never quite produces the same kind of giddy, fits-of-laughter-high as the first.

This biggest problem for me was probably the scope of the plot. The original film was a clever skewering of the road comedy from a tetrahydrocannabinol-aficiando's perspective, with every distance, commute time and minor inconvenience hilariously, accurately exaggerated due to the effects of the drug. All the action was tightly-wound, contained in a radius of some 50 square miles in western New Jersey, an area aptly served by the minimalistic sets and low-budget special effects of the production.

The unremarkable, hedonistic goals of the protagonists were played brilliantly to opposite effect; taking on a kind of soaring, idyllic significance that seemed strangely more honest and realistic than most films "based on a true story." Harold Lee and Kumar Patel came off as refreshingly unpretentious, unsung American heroes championing humble, individual happiness and friendship amidst a social climate of ignorance, intolerance and just plain strangeness. An unforgettable cameo by then-closeted Neil Patrick Harris of television fame, in which he plays a despicably narcissistic, strung-out version of himself, helped to balance and moderate the titular duo's singular desires. In its entirety, the film was perhaps more important for cannabis-decriminalization efforts than it's clear-cut ancestor, the seminal Cheech and Chong-series. Where that similarly ethnic duo were from the get-go stereotypical parodies of unhygenic, unambitious simpleminded drug-users, Harold and Kumar were able to confront the image of intelligent, affluent "model minority" figures without losing any dignity in the process. Even the shameless commercialism of the film's title and ultimate destination, burger-chain White Castle, worked well to this end- validating the lifestyle habits of young, urban, pot-smoking American professionals. (YUPPPIES)

But that was four years ago, at least as far as we in the audience are concerned. (The new film begins minutes after the old one ended, an issue that doesn't ever really get addressed as thoroughly as it should within the context of the narrative). Now we have Harold and Kumar embarking on a more cliche cross country voyage of redemption and self-discovery, away from the worst place you could possibly be when under the influence of drugs; the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

This aspect of the plot alone suggests a more pointed, mature and smarter film, but sadly, that's not the case. With the exception of a few vague statements about the implied hypocrisy of the American federal government and Americans in-general, Escape from Guantanamo Bay is mostly preoccupied with crassness and vulgarity. Generally, these are welcome forces in any film if used discerningly, and while Escape from Guantanamo Bay takes a more scattershot approach, for the most part the comedy is spot on.

Watching Neil Patrick Harris eat mushrooms and drink a fifth of Jack-Daniels whiskey while driving through a roadside police-checkpoint is just one of the many small delights in this vein. Another is James Adomian's masterful George W. Bush impersonation. The 28 year old gives the president an endearing, everyman quality. Bush appears as a fun-loving, irresponsible heir struggling to live up to his strict father's high standards, a schtick we've seen before, but one that has rarely seemed as plausible or as acceptable as presented by Adomian.

Unequivocally, my favorite moment of the film, was a scene where a flamboyantly dressed Harold and Kumar end up driving a flashy yellow convertible into a predominantly black, rural Alabaman neighborhood. A bunch of intimidatingly large young men are playing a game of basketball in the street, blocking our heroes path to safety. Harold attempts to turn around only to back the car into a fire-hydrant, sending a spout of water into the air and over the ground, where it spreads to the basketball game. Things go from bad to worse, as they often do when stoned people attempt to correct their errors, but I hesitate to go into further specifics for fear of ruining the scene for prospective viewers. You may imagine, however, what it would be like to be in even the situation described above, and already the comedic possibilities seem quite bountiful.

Escape from Guantanamo Bay's bounty of unsophisticated humor is not enough, though, to overlook some of the weaker aspects of the production; namely, the script, which leans too heavily on the structure of it's forebear, and the expanded setting, for which cheap-special effects and minimalist sets seem too artificial to be representative of reality, even in an allegorical sense. The climax of the film is copied almost directly from Wedding Crashers (2005), an unfortunate choice since it invites an invariable comparison to that film, in which it also comes up short.

And yet, despite all of it's missed opportunity and uninspired riffs on Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Escape from Guantanamo Bay is tough not to like, at least a little bit. The uptight Harold and easygoing Kumar win you over with their disarming charm, wit and mettle. They are eternal underdogs whose fortunes alternate constantly between the ridiculously terrible and the impossibly fantastic. Up and down the American social ladder they go, encountering a variety of characters obviously designed to evoke Homer's epic The Odyssey, which might even be a deliberate crack at the state of mind of such canonical writers. But even if this is not the case, the film is a fine example of the entertainment value of it's subgenre: the Stoner-Comedy.

In Sum:
My friend Erik astutely gauged the film at 75% of the original, a number that coincides quite well with my viewing experience, although I'd probably even lower that number to 70%. But as Jim Morrison once said: "The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are," and no one could fault either of the Harold and Kumar pictures for being just that. See the sequel if you liked the first, or even if didn't catch it, as this is a fun night out for anyone who can stomach gratuitous nudity and foul language.