{"id":6715,"date":"2024-10-23T13:46:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6715"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:46:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:46:02","slug":"half-baked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/half-baked\/","title":{"rendered":"Half Baked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Half Baked<\/strong> (1998)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 82 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive drug content, language, nudity, sexual material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Tamra Davis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alf Clausen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Steven Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 16, 1998 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dave Chappelle, Jim Breuer, Harland Williams, Guillermo Diaz, Rachel True, Clarence Williams III, Laura Silverman, Tommy Chong, Steven Wright, Tracy Morgan, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Jon Stewart, Stephen Baldwin, Willie Nelson, Bob Saget, Janeane Garofalo.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $17.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0When it comes to pot comedies, give me Cheech & Chong any day of the week and twice on Sunday. My dad (and everyone else\u2019s I\u2019m sure) called them \u201ccreeps\u201d. I called them hilarious and still do. They were the funniest stoners on the planet. I loved their albums and their movies, even Still Smokin\u2019. I mention C&C because Tommy Chong has a supporting role in Half Baked<\/strong>, a good-natured comedy about stoners trying to raise bail money for their imprisoned friend. High in laughs and low on intelligence, it doesn\u2019t take getting high to a new high or low. It\u2019s just content to be.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot, such as it is, centers on four lifelong friends- Thurgood (Chappelle, Robin Hood: Men in Tights), Brian (Breuer, SNL), Kenny (Williams, RocketMan) and Scarface (Diaz, High School High)- who discover marijuana as boys and stick with it into adulthood. The trouble begins when Kenny feeds a whole bunch of junk food to a diabetic police horse and kills it. He\u2019s arrested and held on $1 million bail. Since his friends don\u2019t have that kind of money lying around, they do the next best thing. They start selling weed Thurgood steals from the medical laboratory where he works as a custodian. Calling their outfit \u201cMr. Nice Guy\u201d, they become an overnight success. Of course, complications arise.<\/p>\n

Complication #1: Thurgood falls for a girl named Mary Jane (True, The Craft) who\u2019s vehemently anti-drug. He promises her that he doesn\u2019t smoke or sell weed because she wouldn\u2019t stay with him if she knew the truth. This means a whole lot of lying.<\/p>\n

Complication #2: They have only a short time to raise 10% of a million ($100,000) before Kenny\u2019s protector (Chong) is released from prison leaving him at the mercy of his fellow inmates who want to…. well, I think you can guess what.<\/p>\n

Complication #3: Their new enterprise cuts right into the business of local drug lord Samson Simpson (Williams, The Mod Squad) who demands a hefty weekly cut of their earnings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Usually, I write long in-depth reviews, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s necessary for Half Baked<\/strong>. It is what it is. It\u2019s a comedy about potheads smoking pot and getting into trouble with half-baked schemes. It\u2019s fitfully funny. Sometimes it tries a little too hard; it\u2019s forceful when it should be easygoing. The main cast is a decent one. Chappelle and Diaz are funny; Breuer and Williams tend to be annoying. It has a bevy of cool cameos by the likes of rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, talk show host John Stewart, country singer Willie Nelson and Full House star Bob Saget (as a coke head). Steven Wright has the funniest moments as the \u201cGuy on the Couch\u201d. It has dumb cops and a band of female henchmen with swords.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t even know what else I can tell you about Half Baked<\/strong>. It knows its audience and its audience knows it. It\u2019s far from perfect, but for some reason I don\u2019t think the intended audience will mind or even notice. If they\u2019re doing what I think they\u2019re doing, they\u2019re going to laugh like crazy at this silly, half-brained movie no matter what.\"\"<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Half Baked (1998)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 82 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (pervasive drug content, language, nudity, sexual material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Tamra Davis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alf Clausen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Steven Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 16, 1998 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dave Chappelle, Jim Breuer, Harland Williams, Guillermo Diaz, Rachel True, Clarence Williams III, Laura Silverman, Tommy Chong, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Half-Baked-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6715"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}