Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

Directed by Danny Leiner. Starring John Cho, Kal Penn, David Krumholtz, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Paula Garcés, Neil Patrick Harris, Sandy Jobin-Bevans, Dov Tiefenbach, Christopher Meloni, Ethan Embry, Robert Tinkler, Steve Braun, Sui Ta, Malin Åkerman, Gary Anthony Williams, Bobby Lee. [R]

Two twenty-something stoner best buds get nicely toasted one Friday evening, and their case of the munchies demand one thing and one thing only—it’s right there in the title. Getting there, however, is not as easy as it sounds, as their wild misadventures with capitalist hippies, repulsive car mechanics, “extreme” douche-bros, racist cops, and more make up the squishy, greasy, onion-soaked meat of the clothesline narrative. The lowbrow humor aims for the gross-out/scatological payoffs a bit too often—college girls noisily expelling their bowels, Christopher Meloni as a pustule-covered weirdo called “Freakshow”, etc.—but there are more than enough funny gags to make it worthwhile to anyone who doesn’t mind tapping into their inner-doofus (bonus if they love smoking weed and/or chowing down on White Castle burgers). The secret to its success is the congenial relationship struck up by John Cho and Kal Penn, each of whom would struggle to carry a whole movie as their characters alone, but together, they work small wonders. They’re the slovenly heart, to be sure…and yet the movie is still all but stolen by Neil Patrick Harris, popping up a few times as a hedonistic, drug-tripping horndog version of himself, kicking off an unlikely career renewal for good ol’ “Doogie Howser, M.D.” Equally unlikely is how this little-stoner-comedy-that-could kicked off a film franchise, siring two sequels to date, starting with Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.Features cameo appearances from Fred Willard, Ryan Reynolds, Anthony Anderson, and Jamie Kennedy.

65/100