Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle [2004]
Director: Danny Leiner
Actor: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
Harold (Cho) is a Korean-American investment banker. Well, he’s a junior, which means he does all the work while his seniors go to meetings and lunches and hang around the coffee machine all day. Kumar (Penn) is an Indian-American student, extremely intelligent and gifted and has a natural knack for medicine, just like his successful and demanding father and brother. They’re roommates and they like to get high together, during which they usually come up with bone-headed plans and get into all kinds of trouble. Harold feels in a funk because he’s in love with Maria, the girl that lives in the next apartment, but doesn’t dare to approach her, on top of that he’s being fucked by his senior co-workers to do all the work. Kumar is busy rebelling against his father’s wishes that he goes to med-school, and doesn’t take any of his application interviews seriously.
One night, Harold needs to do a lot of work, but Kumar convinces him to get high together. While high, they see a commercial for White Castle on television, a fast-food chain the likes of Wendy’s, Burger King and McDonald’s. There’s one difference between White Castle and the rest of the chains; their burgers are like little bits of heaven. Of course, being high and having the munchies, they go on a quest to find the nearest White Castle and have some of these burgers.
During their quest they run into all kinds of trouble, get arrested, meet two hot diarrhea-loving British chicks, a weed-obsessed hippy, bigot punks, and a near-sociopathic, drugged out Neil Patrick Harris, the guy who used to play Dougie Howser, MD. All the while Harold tries to come to terms with his love for Maria, and Kumar tries to come to terms with the fact that he’s going to be an outstanding doctor.
This is a film in the Bill & Ted-genre of film, and it suffers from all the same problems, while still being incredibly entertaining. I can’t wait for the next installment, out this year, called Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay!
