Harold and Kumar Escape from Gitmo picks up where the first Harold and Kumar left off, a few hours later. The movie opens to pulsating hip-hop soundtrack with our favorite buddy-buddy stoners, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) getting ready to go to Amsterdam. Harold is dreaming of his beloved fantasy girl Maria and Kumar can’t wait to have the great Dutch weed smoke-out. However, things don’t go so smoothly as planned. On the trans-Atlantic flight, a concerned passenger mistakes Kumar for a terrorist—he gets caught smoking a “smokeless bong” in the restroom. Kumar and Harold get thrown in the clink – at Gitmo Bay, Cuba. After a prisoner breakout, they hitch a ride to Miami with some friendly Cubans and track down a college friend in South Beach. Then then drive off to Texas to track down Kumar’s ex-girlfriend, Vanessa (Danneel Harris) who’s about to get married. Her fiancé has White House connections that could clear their names.
Writers/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg upped the crude, vulgar, nudity and scatological humor to an unfortunate degree. The writing duo dropped the ball when it came time to do some interesting satire on racial profiling and the war on terror. Instead, they went for the easy, teenage laughs.
The soundtrack had a welcomed edge and cameo appearance by Neal Patrick Harris in the second half of the film almost saves the movie from banal absurdity but not quite.
