Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) New Line/Comedy RT: 90 minutes Unrated Version (strong language, sexual content, nudity, drug use, some crude humor, ethnic stereotypes) Director: Danny Leiner Screenplay: Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg Music: David Kitay Cinematography: Bruce Douglas Johnson Release date: July 30, 2004 (US) Cast: John Cho, Kal Penn, Paula Garces, Neil Patrick Harris, David Krumholtz, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Siu Ta, Dov Tiefenbach, Brooke D’Orsay, Kate Kelton, Christopher Meloni, Malin Ackerman, Steve Braun, Sandy Jobin Bevans, Anthony Anderson, Ethan Embry, Fred Willard, Ryan Reynolds, Gary Anthony Williams, Jamie Kennedy. Box Office: $18.2M (US)/$23.9M (World)
Rating: *** ½
I partied pretty hard in college. When classes were done for the day, I was either at the movies or in my room smoking weed. Miraculously, I also found time to study and earn decent grades. ANYWAY, the point of this true confession is I completely understand the lifestyle depicted in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, a funny stoner comedy about two New Jersey potheads on a quest for the perfect snack after getting hit with a case of the munchies. I can’t say I ever got a craving (weed-induced or otherwise) to dine at this particular establishment, but people tend to crave some odd things when they’re wasted. I once ate Rice Chex and leftover pizza while under the influence. No judging, please.
Best friends/roommates Harold Lee (Cho, American Pie) and Kumar Patel (Penn, Van Wilder) aren’t your typical stoners. Harold, a second-generation Korean-American, works at an investment banking firm where he’s constantly pressured by colleagues to do their work for them. Kumar, a second-generation Indian-American, plans to attend medical school to be a doctor like his father and brother. Actually, it’s his father’s plan. Kumar isn’t sure if that’s what he wants to do.
They’re sitting in their New Brunswick apartment getting high one night when a commercial for White Castle comes on. For those not familiar, it’s a fast food joint that specializes in sliders, mini-burgers with fried onions and ketchup. Take it from me, they’re nasty! ANYWAY, they instantly get a craving for the burgers and decide to leave the comfort and safety of their apartment to obtain the desired cuisine. It’s a journey that will ultimately test the strength of their friendship.
After learning the closest WC closed four years ago, they embark on an impromptu road trip to the next nearest location in Cherry Hill. It’s a trek fraught with mishap and misadventure beginning with a side trip to Princeton University to buy more pot after a paranoid Harold throws their stash out the window. While Kumar looks for a dealer, Harold visits with a female acquaintance (Ta, The Art of Woo) who has a huge crush on him. Of course, it ends with the boys being chased off campus by security guards.
Over the course of the night, Harold and Kumar encounter many obstacles en route to gastronomic glee at WC. At one point, they’re mistaken for surgeons at the hospital they stop at after Harold is attacked by a wild raccoon. They also have to deal with a gang of racist extreme-sports punks, a runaway cougar, a bigoted bully cop and a deformed redneck named Freakshow (Meloni, Law & Order: SVU) who invites the boys to have sex with his hot wife (Ackerman, Watchmen). Oh yeah, they also pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris. It’s sounds strange, but is that not the essence of stoner comedies?
Directed by Danny Leiner (Dude, Where’s My Car?), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is something of a throwback to the pot comedies of the 70s and 80s, the ones starring Cheech & Chong in particular. It probably won’t surprise you if I tell you I’m a fan of C&C. I liked them even before the parentals finally relented and let me watch their movies. Up in Smoke is CLASSIC! So is Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle in its own way. It goes against the 21st century grain in not condemning the characters for their heavy drug use. It doesn’t necessarily condone it either. It just shows you two guys who like to indulge perhaps a bit too much having a wild night. There’s really no point in weighing down the movie with an anti-drug message. Save it for the PSAs on MTV. This one is strictly for laughs.
Let’s talk about Harold for a moment. He’s a low-key sort who can’t even get up the nerve to talk to the pretty neighbor Maria (Garces, Marci X) he’s been crushing on for a while much less stand up to the co-workers that dump a pile of work on his desk at the last minute on a Friday so they can go out and party for the weekend. They assume he’ll do it because he’s Asian and lives to work like all people of Asian descent. It can never be said that Harold’s drug use makes him lazy. He does the work on a laptop between misadventures that include a brief stay in jail courtesy of a racist cop with an IQ clearly in the double digits. Based on what I’ve just told you, you know two things will occur by movie’s end: (1) Harold will confront his d-bag co-workers and (2) he will talk to Maria. BTW, Leiner makes great use of the Rose Royce song “I Wanna Get Next to You” in a scene that recalls the 1976 blaxploitation comedy Car Wash.
Now onto Kumar, a character hewing closer to the traditional idea of a stoner. Although he’s more than qualified for med school (he’s very intelligent), he intentionally botches his interviews even though it pisses off his conservative dad who threatens to cut him off if he messes up his next (and final) interview the next morning. He’s the troublemaker of the pair. Pretty much everything that happens to them is his fault to some degree. Like I said earlier, their friendship will be put to the test as a result of the chain of events that occur once they head out into the night.
Cho and Penn have great chemistry and even better rapport. They get into some wacky situations, but none of them come close to their bizarre encounter with Neil Patrick Harris who turns out to be an Ecstasy-using, womanizing, sex-crazy party freak. Say it isn’t so, Doogie! It’s an awesome cameo that ranks right alongside Bill Murray’s in Zombieland.
The mere presence of NPH is representative of the wild, anarchic spirit of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, a comedy with no aspirations of greatness or profundity. It seeks only seeks to entertain the stoner crowd. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. While best watched while smoking large quantities of reefer, it can also be enjoyed by those who choose to abstain. It all comes down to one thing, the most important element of comedy, it’s FUNNY! I laughed frequently which, for me, is a big deal. Modern comedies tend to leave me cold. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is one of the few exceptions. Leiner understands stoner comedy. He knows what they find funny. His comic timing is spot-on. He even manages to work in a call-out to Dude, Where’s My Car? I half-expected Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott to make an appearance.
The supporting characters in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle are quite memorable from H&K’s friends, a pair of Jewish stoners- Goldstein (Krumholtz, The Santa Clause 1 & 2) and Rosenberg (Thomas, the American Pie movies)- who live in the same building to the two hot Princeton co-eds that play a gross version of Battleship in the bathroom after eating Mexican food with H&K trapped in the stall between them. Some of the humor is crude and tasteless, but I never said we’re dealing with Masterpiece Theater here.
It’s highly unlikely Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle will ever be inducted into the Library of Congress by the AFI (American Film Institute). HOWEVER, it works on its own unambitious terms. Stoner comedies are a breed all their own. It helps to be stoned to enjoy movies that rely on viewers having some familiarity with that particular altered state of mind. Plot is generally nonexistent. They’re mostly they’re a series of misadventures of people living in a cloud of marijuana smoke. It worked well for Cheech & Chong and still works for Harold & Kumar. Their first film is as loose and free-wheeling as any trip involving pot. The philosophy is the same too. The final destination isn’t as important as the journey. It’s a trip worth taking whether or not you indulge in a certain herbal pastime.
