Dude, where's my burger?
Cheech & Chong are rolling over in their E-Z Wider. Bill & Ted are up in smoke. Jay & Silent Bob are, like, totally wasted. That's because Harold & Kumar are the undisputed doobie brothers of a new generation.The twist of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, a laugh-out-loud if not-exactly-good stoner comedy, is that its heroes, an entry-level investment banker and a brainiac pre-med student, are not dimwits.
Cheech & Chong are rolling over in their E-Z Wider. Bill & Ted are up in smoke. Jay & Silent Bob are, like, totally wasted. That's because Harold & Kumar are the undisputed doobie brothers of a new generation.
The twist of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, a laugh-out-loud if not-exactly-good stoner comedy, is that its heroes, an entry-level investment banker and a brainiac pre-med student, are not dimwits.
They are overachieving lonely guys who want to unwind on a Friday night. Did I mention that their Asian heritage frequently makes them the target of racism from white dudes in Hoboken? And that Harold & Kumar have an epic case of the munchies?
After a few tokes these nice-guy nerds transform into brain-baked knights who embark on a heroic quest across New Jersey for their Holy Grail, a White Castle slider. Why anyone would travel from Hoboken to Cherry Hill for an oleaginous dollop of ground round on a powder puff of white bread is a mystery of intoxicants if not one of product placement.
Even when the film detours into the gross-out realms of the flatulent, the incontinent and the New Jersey traffic circle, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are amusing company. The manic Korean American and laidback Indian American have odd-couple appeal.
You don't have to inhale in order to get a contact high from this movie that brings new meanings to the expression melting pot.
I lost it when Our Heroes' Yeshiva friends used a shofar as a bong. I lost it again when Our Heroes got high with a cheetah.
Director Danny Leiner (Dude, Where's My Car?) scrupulously observes the five sacred commandments of the pothead picture.
Show 'em wasted.
Show 'em lost.
Show 'em ravenously hungry.
Show 'em singing along to the words of a song that, if straight, they would be too embarrassed to listen to.
Show 'em laughing hysterically for no particular reason.
This combination of events is as fundamental to the stoner comedy as the A-A-B-B-A rhyme scheme is to the limerick. However predictable, however hackneyed, it has a payoff.
For those familiar with the intricacies of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, the biggest laugh of Harold & Kumar may be that the characters believe they can get from Hoboken to Cherry Hill in 45 minutes.
Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey
at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.
Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/carrierickey.
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
** (out of four stars)
Produced by Greg Shapiro and Nathan Kahane, directed by Danny Leiner, written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, photography by Bruce Douglas Johnson, music by David Kitay, distributed by New Line Cinema.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 mins.
Harold. . . John Cho
Kumar. . . Kal Penn
Himself. . . Neil Patrick Harris
Rosenberg. . . Eddie Kaye Thomas
Goldstein. . . David Krumholtz
Parent's guide: R (drugs, crude situations, profanity, nudity, sexual candor)
Playing at: area theaters