Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

With a name like that, your first reaction is to say, "WTF?!?!?!" Kinda like "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." With titles like that you first think they reek of stupidity and Hollywood going lower than they already have. Intrigued, I decided to check this out, especially considering part of the story had the name "Kumar" in it (because it's not a typical Anglo-Saxon name). I was expecting something silly, but not to the level this presented....and it was a pleasant silly for once. A friend of mine remarked that this might be the new Cheech and Chong, with themes of sex, drugs, music, and bad taste in humor along with two ethnic types being thrown in absurd adventures. He isn't far from the mark when you get to see this movie. Unlike the Cheech and Chong series though which simply entered into the area of the absurd (and generally bad but funny taste), this show aims to demonstrate non-whites in a more positive light through humor. That is what distinguishes this flick from any other teen flick about smoking pot, etc. Smoking some hash one night, Harold, a Korean American investment banker (junior), tags along with Kumar, an Indian American pre-med student, to find the perfect meal: White Castle Burgers. The story quickly breaks down from any realistic mode and enters into a pseudo-fantasy realm a la Wayne's World, where the absurd become reality (although you have to question where the reality is not just a construction of lit greenery from the two's imaginations). Besides White Castle though, their intention focuses on two other things: getting laid and smoking a lot of pot. Part of the movie involves them attempting to locate weed, going from the Princeton campus to the jail cells. I think by having the drug motif the producers excuse themselves somewhat from reality and diving into fantasy of how to cast a drugy's mind. But as with any comedy movie with a pot element, it's all good. One of the best scenes in the movie involves Kumar in a dream state, falling in love with a bag of pot. There's a classic line where Kumar, in a wife beater outfit, receives a coffee from his newly wed pot bag, spits it out and tells the bag, "Bitch! Learn to make coffee!" Parts of the movie just degenerates into utter stupidity, low brow humor or slows down. For instance, the portion of the pair getting rescued by Freakshow who tells them they can bang his wife has no rhythm and just lags. Same with the part where they encounter the Burger Shack employee. They try to run with jokes in those scenes but they last too long to make any sincere impact. The low brow humor of the toilet (literally speaking) is a cheap tactic for the audience to become acquainted with the characters and more "involved" with the movie; this occurs during the diarhea twins holding a game of "Battleshit." Although admittedly this is a raunchy funny scene, it really adds nothing to the characters nor the plot (outside of Kumar dropping another bag of pot in the toilet from shock). There's enough other movies that employ these devices making it cliche (and some which utilize these devices to make a point like South Park). Where this movie does make its mark is when issues of ethnicity and stereotyped (by very real) situations that many of us Asian Americans probably at one time or another faced. For instance, the Extreme Team posers who beat up on the Indian mini-mart store owner where Kumar attempts to defend him and flinches typifies Asian Americans as being cowards in a fight. However, revenge is definitely sweet when Harold steals the posers' truck and later implicates them by leaving behind a huge bag of pot for a police officer to crack down on. The situation is a win of brains over brawns which I believe many Asian Americans who work hard believe in. And though the movie does raise those issues, it's not afraid to poke back at our own stereotypes as Asians. For instance, the character of Cindy Kim, whom Harold does not like at all, reminds us of how many of us nerdy guys end up getting some equally geeky Asian girl rather than our dream date. Or where Harold is forced to endure the Korean Association where a bunch of Princeton (presumably) Korean geek guys are bugging him about his job as an investment banker. However, those images of the nerdy Asian are turned around and defied or are shown as positive qualities in the film. For instance, the geeky association throws a killer party which has what both guys want: pot. Later both regret not going and even attempt to blame each other for their lack of foresight. Another instance is where Kumar ends up saving a man's life in the hospital (obviously this wouldn't happen since he was a pre-med student, but hey give him a break). One particular thing I didn't like about the presentation of the movie was the explicit dialog. Not the four letter poetry recited at every other turn, nor the content. But the way it was presented, meaning more "tell don't show." Comparing this movie to Office Space, Mike Judge does a better job in making his points without voceferously announcing it to the public and allow people to infer or deduce what his points are. For example, the traffic jam scene at the beginning where Peter is slowed down to a crawl is emphasized through the use of an old man on a walker moving faster than the people in his traffic lane. On the other hand, Harold and Kumar would present a scene which would be doubly emphasized through dialog. A good example is where Harold spots Goldstein and the other jewish guy and admits outloud, "I want that...The feeling a man gets when he gets exactly what he desires." That is a tragic screen error as it undermines the confidence in the actor's ability to convey such emotions with facial expressions and removes the audience's ability to reach the same conclusion. The result is a weaker state of revelation. A better scene where this doesn't occur is the moment where both receive their goal and are blissfully consuming their meals; one part shows both lamenting which kinda is meant to be humorous because it demonstrates the toil of their adventure. Yet the simplicity of that moment and the placement is far more effective than the previously mentioned part. Ultimately, the movie attempts to provide both guys with their self-despised qualities of being stereotypically Asian, and then move beyond that to show the positives of that ethnicity as well as demonstrating both guys as just being the guys next door wanting to have a good time. And that's what the movie is: having a good time. I hear that a new one will be coming out. I personally hope to see more of these series as they can go further in developing these characters on adventures of ridiculousness, drugs, sex and ethnic identities. There's a good basis for them to build these two from. More importantly they have enough unique qualities to improve the basis. And there's a few good supporting characters they can utilize like Goldstein, Cindy Kim, Rosenberg, Kenneth Park, and even the Extreme Posers.