Another Road Movie

Road movies have been a staple in the Hollywood plot formulary since Bob and Bing perfected the concept in the 1940's and 1950's. Two guys travelling to exotic locales and having comic misadventures along the way. Films like The Road to Morocco, The Road to Zanzibar, and The Road to Bali were funny and easy to enjoy. And, they were films that the whole family could watch.

And then there was Ishtar...

This weekend I watched the 21st century version of a road movie: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo. The movie begins on the morning after the conclusion of their last cinematic adventure, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. In the first film the boys, righteously stoned, spend the entire night driving around New Jersey trying to get to a White Castle while encountering all kinds of obstacles to their quest: a college party, having their car stolen by Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Houser), going to jail, breaking out of jail, and hang gliding. Harold is also suffering from an unrequited love for a beautiful girl who lives in their apartment building. As the film ends, she is flying off to Amsterdam for three weeks.

The second movie begins the next day with Harold and Kumar preparing to follow their neighbor to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, they are pegged as terrorists during the flight, given a summary butt-chewing by a room full of Homeland Security types, and shipped off to Guantanamo where they manage to promptly escape. The remainder of the film focuses on their trek across the southern United States in search of a person who can "fix" their situation with the government. They again encounter Neil Patrick Harris who leads them into misadventures in a Texas whorehouse, and they manage to stay stoned for the majority of the film.

This, of course, isn't a film for children or uptight adults. But for anyone who ever wondered what it would be like to sit around the ranch at Crawford and smoke weed with the President (and who hasn't?), this movie, like the first, is a lot of fun!