Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

Date posted: Mon, 12/05/2008 - 5:22pm

Year:	2008
Director:	Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossburg
Cast:	John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, and Neil Patrick Harris
Rating:	C+
Reviewed by:	David Holmes

 

 

To the surprise of many filmgoers, 2005's Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle was a funny and often intelligent entry into the horn-dog/stoner comedy genre that was so regrettably unavoidable for much of this decade and the last. Apart from its absurd herbally-inspired humor, the film's charms came primarily from its two affable leads and their glorified fight against discrimination on the way to enjoying the simple pleasures of cheap greasy quasi-meat. Writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossburg (who this time step behind the camera) celebrated Harold and Kumar's ethnic identities where other films had merely stereotyped them, and thinking back, I’m pretty sure every white person in <I>White Castle</I> was either stupid, racist, or named Neil Patrick Harris. It was a welcome backlash against the jock/frat-boy ethos that had ruled the comedic landscape for so long, and so the prospect of a sequel (especially one with such a promising premise right in its title) was as inviting as a moist sack of steaming hot burgers.

Sadly, the frequently lazy comedy of Escape From Guantanamo Bay fails to live up to its potential, padding scenes of acerbic hilarity with the kind of predictably gratuitous nudity and flatulence that's only funny if you're a really stoned high schooler. And while the anti-establishment spirit is definitely still alive and well, it isn't nearly as effective when so many of the jokes are targeted at the same kind of simpletons the filmmakers intend to expose. The film even has a tendency to fall into the same trap of stereotyping that Harold and Kumar rally against, as if to meet less enlightened filmgoers half-way (for example, a Homeland Security agent tries to draw a confession from two young Jewish men by emptying a bag of pennies on the table; the men dutifully show their disgust with the interrogation tactic, but then greedily scoop up the coins after the investigator leaves the room).

It's a shame too because amid all the fart jokes, tired racial observations, topless women, and bottomless men are some brilliantly-staged sequences that really get to the heart of how America's “War on Terror” is so often distorted to mean “The War on Immigrants, Foreigners, and Anyone Else the Current Administration Deems Undesirable.” At the start of the film (which takes place mere hours after the original), Harold and Kumar are boarding a plane for Amsterdam to catch up with the elevator girl Harold falls in love with in the first movie. The moment they sit down, already a little old lady is suspiciously eying Kumar, imagining him in a long beard and turban, maniacally acting out the motion of a crashing plane with his hands. Minutes later, she mistakes his “smokeless bong” for an explosive and before the titular pair know what's hit them, they're getting tackled by roid-raged U.S. Marshals and being shipped off to Gitmo by a power-hungry minority-hating Homeland Security chief (Rob Corddry).

 

 

Luckily, Harold and Kumar escape the prison camp mere minutes after arriving (any longer and this would have been a much different movie) and hitch a ride to the mainland with a group of Cubans illegally entering Miami. Once there, the two decide to seek out one of Harold's old college acquaintances, a blueblooded WASP named Colton (Eric Winter), who is set to marry Kumar's ex-girlfriend (Danneel Harris) but also has connections with Washington who can clear their name. This sets into motion a trek across the American South from Florida to Texas where the two fugitives will encounter street gangs, Klan meetings, a cyclops, and of course, the shroom-eating, whiskey-swilling, prostitute-abusing and all-around deplorable human being, Neil Patrick Harris (as himself).

I wish I could tell you all of these scenes are as biting and insightful as the film's first act, but really the only sequence that comes close is when the two happen to crash through the ceiling of George W. Bush's private ranch. It's here where Escape From Guantanamo Bay finally proves its worth, examining the unbelievable absurdity of living under the Bush administration through the hazy paranoid lens of the stoner comedy. To be sure, there is much that is forgettable, hackneyed, and obnoxious about the film, and it certainly lacks the high laugh count of the original. But there is also much to be admired, including its indefatigable subversive spirit and its desire to shed light on the ignorance and cruelty of America's authority figures, without abandoning the hope that the future may hold brighter days. As a less-than-great man says near the end of the film, “You don't have to trust your government, as long as you believe in your country.” That may not strike you as terribly profound, but it still says more about the American identity today than all of last year's Iraq War movies combined. Oh well, better luck next time, Paul Haggis.