“Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is a movie that can’t decide if it’s going to be a gross-out fraternity-boy comedy a la the “American Pie” series; a satire on the current paranoia, racism, and increasing government interference into American’s lives a la “Wag the Dog”; or, just an updated “Cheech and Chong” road/weed movie for the new millennium.
In trying to scrunch all three of these together, director Jon Hurwitz has concocted a film which would be a lot funnier if, in fact, America did not have innocent prisoners incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay; and if there were not an increasing burden of proof that these prisoners have been treated in violation of everything we stand for as Americans: in short, the country I love doesn’t torture people, doesn’t lock them up without a trial, doesn’t assume guilty until proved innocent. This film makes the point through Harold and Kumar’s story that this is what is happening at “Gitmo”. However, since it is a “Harold and Kumar” flick, you know that the boys are going to get out of the slammer and get some restitution for what’s happened to them. That’s not happening for the innocent men wrongfully imprisoned at Gitmo, and that’s what makes this movie unevenly paced, and much of the racial humor hard to watch.
It’s a little like someone making a movie called “Yitzak and Schlomo Escape from Auschwitz” in the 1940’s. Ha ha, watch the funny Nazis chase them across Europe…making fun of the Gypsies, homosexuals, labor union leaders and anyone and everyone else who got herded into the camps.
Parental Alert: This movie contains frequent drug references, full frontal female and male nudity, profanity, prostitution, references to "cockmeat" and homosexuality, incest between siblings, feces and potty humor, and graphic gun violence. DO NOT take your kids to this movie!
John Cho and Kal Penn make this movie watchable merely by their terrific on-screen chemistry; the scene on the airplane where they are mistaken for terrorists is arguably the funniest five minutes of adult humor I’ve seen on screen in a long time. It mocks the current paranoid hysteria and racial profiling –but once again, contrasting this poor little lightweight flick with a powerhouse like “Khuda Kay Liye”—the humor cuts “too close to the bone” to be really funny.
Basically, if you’re a white American in this movie, you’re either an idiot or a racist cracker.(Or a hooker – I forgot to put that in the “Parental Alert” section.)
So, is this movie worth$12 to see in the theater? Well, if you’re in Amsterdam and have been smoking weed(actually I wouldn’t know, I’ve never smoked it) it’s probably a safe bet that you’d laugh at the antics of the idiotic Homeland Security agent chasing down Harold and Kumar as they head cross-country in search of a presidential pardon.
But if you’re stone cold sober? Well, as the African American orthodontist said to the agent as he slowly poured out a can of “Grape Soda”(an obscure racist reference), “Man, that’s just not necessary.”