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# ‘Harold & Kumar’ is funny, stoned or not
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/the-village-ending-not-worth-enduring-2-hours-of-watching/
- Published: 2004-07-30T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:46:56.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

Those expecting this to be another half-baked comedy (and I’ll admit that I was), may be surprised to learn that “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle” — with its fully-baked titular characters — is hands-down the funniest film of the summer. Well-deserved kudos to director Danny Leiner (“Dude, Where’s My Car?”) for entrusting the lead roles to — as the film’s trailer boasts — “that Indian guy from ‘Van Wilder’” (Kal Penn) and “that Asian guy from ‘American Pie’” (John Cho), but what’s most impressive about “Harold & Kumar” isn’t its multi-ethnic cast, but its relentless sense of humor. Sure, it’s a stoner flick at heart, and one that deserves mention alongside classics such as “Up In Smoke” and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” but even those who’ve never inhaled will find plenty to laugh at from start to finish.

The plot is succinctly summed up in the title: Harold Lee (Cho) is an overworked investment banker and a pushover. His roommate, Kumar Patel (Penn), is a diehard slacker doing everything in his power to piss off his parents and avoid an inevitable stint in medical school. After many bong hits at their Hoboken pad, the duo is overcome (thanks to a commercial featuring mouth-watering White Castle hamburgers) by a mean case of the munchies and set out into the night, determined to satisfy their jonze. Their quest down the New Jersey Parkway becomes an all-nighter, and along the way Harold and Kumar encounter racist cops, an escaped cheetah, a marauding group of extreme-sports punks and, hilariously, Neil Patrick Harris of “Doogie Howser, M.D.” fame — playing himself as a drugged-out sex freak. The screenplay by new-bies Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, while unabashedly bawdy, consistently eschews the genre’s predictable gags (such as painting the stoners as inarticulate doofuses) and offers refreshingly well-rounded characters in clever scenarios. Cho and Penn are funny and lifelike, and get solid support from Eddy Kaye Thomas, Christopher Meloni and Fred Willard. Jamie Kennedy’s brief cameo appearance is uproarious. (Rated R for strong language, sexual content, drug use and some crude humor. Running time: 87 minutes)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 30, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/073004.pdf?ref=smdp.com)