Munchies Madness
Harold & Kumar Brings Back the "Stoned" Age

Few of the recent "teen comedies" to hit the big screen have been a hit with me. Maybe I'm getting too old. Maybe I'm too conservative. Maybe I just don't think watching some kid have sex with a pie is funny. I've watched quite a few, however, and even chuckled now and then. But I have not laughed so hard at a film that is so unquestionably wrong as I did when I watched the new drug-related comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.

The entire premise of Harold & Kumar revolves around a couple of twenty-something stoners who get high one Friday night and decide that the only way to satisfy their marijuana-induced food cravings is to seek out a White Castle and chow down on some burgers. What branches from this rather simple premise is a road movie of sorts that seeks to poke fun at pretty much everything.

John Cho and Kal Penn star as Harold and Kumar, respectively. Harold is a financial analyst for a big company who is in love with his beautiful neighbor Maria (Paula Garcés). Kumar is a brilliant medical savant who is trying to avoid medical school and his father's footsteps. The duo sees their world through the perspective of outsiders. First, as minorities (Cho is Korean and Penn is Indian), the two reflect the plight of the stereotyped foreigners. Kumar is abused for his "un-American" name and is taunted by sports jocks who call him "Abu" and make fun of him. Harold, on the other hand, tries to fit within the corporate world only to be abused by his co-workers who take advantage of him.

Despite Harold getting an overnight work assignment, Kumar convinces him to partake of an illegal substance and soon they are both forgetting their problems. After getting the munchies, the duo embark on their burger quest that leads them through New Jersey and introduces them to a variety of comedic mishaps and strange people, including Neil Patrick Harris (as himself). They nearly motivate a burger employee to burn down his workplace (because it's not a White Castle), then discover the location of another White Castle in another city.

Some of the laughs come from the absurd, others from an overwhelming sense of disgust, but most of the laughs come from things that are just plain wrong. When Harold and Kumar see two boys get jumped on the street and beaten, the strangeness and suddenness of the event makes the audience laugh. Later, when the duo are high and riding on a cheetah (yeah, really), the surreal moment had me doubled over in laughter. Throughout, there is also a fair amount of gross-out humor.

Still, some of the humor in the film is tinged with a wit and commentary unexpected in a teen comedy. Naturally, with two minority leads the film has a lot to say about racism. When Harold is arrested for jaywalking at one in the morning, the film portrays the police as racist white men who only see color not individuals. The film does quite a bit of stereotyping of its own, however.

The search for a White Castle is part MacGuffin, part metaphor. The quest for the burgers allows Harold and Kumar to experience a night of weird vignettes that are only strung together by the experience of the road trip. Other than that, most of the things that happen during the film have no relationship to one another.

By the end of the film, however, White Castle becomes a symbol of something else. It's about the need for ultimate satisfaction, for complete happiness. It's also about following through and achieving something impossible. While the unlikely protagonists seem like the last people to send a positive message, there is a lesson about making dreams come true that actually works.

MY RATING: 7 out of 10.

RATED: R
RUN TIME: 88 min.