"Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" (2008) - Movie Review

“Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay”- Is there anything to be explained about the plot? The film as such its title does not shy from blatant stupidity and you do not go inside the theatre for making sense. If the predecessor of this film “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” put a strange smile on us towards the silliest and disgusting predicament positions these two titular characters get themselves into, then the second installment from this franchise stretches it farther and cruder than you can imagine. It is one of the raunchiest, stupidest and sometimes testing our limits in taking a joke further beyond in shocking us surprisingly works. It has the writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg of the first film directing this in the same style and crassness.

The film begins exactly where it left, in fact follows the time frame. The perennial stoners Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are gearing up to the hub of getting legally high town Amsterdam. Harold’s love interest Maria (Paula Garcés) is there and they do not want to waste no time in New Jersey. Immediately they drop and dig into the series of raunchy festival climbing on top of one after another. This time around it takes the post 9/11 fears and stereotype judgments many make and rides on it carefully and carelessly in tandem.

The thing which I liked about this silly film is that at various instances when they delve us in to the realm of stereotypical characters, they prickle the laugh through the judgments people fall for and immediately authenticates some of them as right ones with a twist. Hence it secures its base on all boundaries with an unsuitable reality and the manifestation of laughter through it.

It jokes around the torture tactics in Guantanamo Bay and carry the misrepresentation of the region and race. It stamps the nudity of it with the sole intention for what it is. It picks up all the illogical things ever been dreamt and those were not in to one big bowl of dirty humour, sarcasm and grossness. They even manage to squeeze in a lost lady bird for Kumar, Vanessa (Danneel Harris). And Neil Patrick Harris reprises himself in to an invented horny, high and unpredictable character again. How can you make a real life person produce a character of him without destroying any of the plots and little reality the film claims to have? I do not know but it is dead on.

A film very true to its genre never plans on answering any of the weirdest chain of events or character disappearing or even dying. It engulfs us totally into its world and we go along with it. When we see “Tom & Jerry” cartoons, we know the head smashing and the face turning into a plate is a harmless physical comedy. It is the same formula this film takes on. It knows its audience and knows its territory and has a ride on us every bit of it. There is cheesiness in the end but at that moment we are in it playing along with them.

John Cho and Kal Penn have fun as much as we have watching them carry on their characters with a comedic sincerity required of them. You can see them dropping a suppressed smile in their face when the funny sequences touch the limits of ridicule. If the film relies on their constant screen presence and the chemistry, it equals on to the supporting characters in idiotic situations to make theirs and our ride an entertaining one. The hillbilly sequence with Jon Reep and Missi Pyle is the classic example of that. Without their characters sticking to their stereotype amongst the oddity of their surroundings, it would have been a joke shooting everywhere the bad taste of it but it does not at all.

Some times it made me wonder how come it cleared the R-rating. Such is the extent they take the raunchiness that in between our laughs we are surprised by it. Many might be amazed that I am praising a film like this. I like any film which sticks to its genre and is honest in its attempt with an ambidextrous capability of handling both sensibility and insensibility. The talent of presenting a stupid comedy is not easy as it is a hit and miss category. There is no mediocre in this kind of film making and “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” has the same tone and idiocy the first one had placed right on the money.