Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (2004) Movie Review

Stoner comedies don't do much for me, simply because they're usually jokes that are only funny if you're high. So it's a nice surprise to find a comedy that uses the format but bases both plot and humour on the characters. It's very silly, but it keeps us laughing consistently.

Harold (Cho) is a low-level investment banker whose colleagues take advantage of him shamelessly; he's so shy he can't even say hello to the cute girl next door (Garces). His life-loving childhood buddy Kumar (Penn) is a med student who can't be bothered to pursue his career. One fateful pot-infused night they decide to drive across New Jersey to get some White Castle burgers. But along the way they have a series of adventures that force them to look at their lives in new ways.

That doesn't sound like the plot of a stoner comedy, does it? Not only is there actually some subtext, but it's beautifully mined by the script and the central actors. Amid the insane goofiness there's some serious stuff happening that actually speaks to us, simply because it's so organic within the material. And Cho and Penn are such a gifted, engaging double act that we can see this turning into a franchise--or a (cable) TV series.

But it's the stupid hijinks we're here for, right? And the film has those in abundance. Director Leinar (Dude, Where's My Car) stages each mini-adventure impeccably--from Anderson's Burger Shack tirade to the escalating insanity of a visit to Princeton, from encounters with a raccoon and a cheetah (!) to a stopover with a seriously revolting tow-truck driver (Meloni) and his sex-pot wife (Akerman), from their run-in with Doogie Houser (Harris as a crazed version of himself) to a stint in a backwoods jail with a local supercop (Jobin-Bevans). Of course, we also get the required mega-dose of gross-out humour and sniggering running gags, but even those are funny. And there's even a hilarious homage to the seminal Wayne's World, but with pure heart. Or rather, Wilson Phillips.