John Cho (American Pie) and Kal Penn (National Lampoon’s Van Wilder) play the title pair, college-grad stoners whose nocturnal mission to score some fast food leads to a series of misadventures. Directed by Danny Leiner (Dude, Where’s My Car?) and scripted by first-timers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, this leaden comedy is stocked with mile-wide targets—uptight executives, thuggish cops, confused potheads, deformed rednecks—but seldom hits anything. A few ideas are moderately fresh (a dorm party hosted by cliquish Asian students), and others are rescued by the players’ zeal (former child star Neil Patrick Harris, as himself, snorting cocaine off a woman’s ass). But for the most part this reminded me of a hysterical passenger pushing random buttons in the cockpit of a plunging airplane.
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
R • 1 hour 28 min • 2004