'Harold & Kumar' sequel is a guilty pleasure

From beyond the valley of PC, the colorfully titled "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" takes comedic aim at everything from the KKK to George W. Bush, Homeland Security excesses and, most of all, pot.

Often dumb-dumb, and proudly so, it is just as often the closest thing to political satire that current audiences are likely to buy. Make a movie that mentions the word "Iraq," even a good movie like "Stop Loss," and the theaters will be empty. Add two stoner guys, and you can sneak in all kinds of satirical nudges.

"Harold" is so over the top that it serves its existing cult well, but it may have trouble soliciting new recruits. One suspects this will do OK in theaters for one week and then retire to a long life on DVD. After all, one of its two directors said, "Our audience is too stoned to leave the house."

"Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" was a burger raid that cost $9 million to make and was released in 2004. It grossed $18 million in theaters but took in $60 million in DVD rentals and sales. There is small wonder that this sequel is here, even four years after the original.

Both characters have been residents of New Jersey all their lives, one Korean American, one Indian American. When we meet them this time, it's just moments after the first movie ended. They plan to run off to Amsterdam after a girl and a world of legal pot. On the plane they are mistaken for terrorists and spirited off to Guantanamo Bay yelling that they were smuggling a bong, not a bomb. They easily escape, catching a ride with a bunch of Cubans on a raft.

Pursued by a rabid Homeland Security maniac, they try to get to Texas to hook up with a guy who claims to be a good friend of George W. Bush.

As stoner pairs go, Harold and Kumar are much more acceptable and likable than, say, Cheech and Chong were in an earlier era. Cheech and partner glorified pot as if it were some exotic form of rebellion. H&K take it for granted. There is very little anger in "Harold & Kumar," in spite of its political targets.

Neil Patrick Harris, the child star of TV's "Doogie Howser, M.D.," returns in a sly representation of himself as a drugger and sexaholic - a degree of self-degradation that has netted him a new generation of fans who are delighted with the TV star's disregard for the rules. Here, he sees a multicolored unicorn as he leads H&K to a Texas "house of pleasure."

Actor James Adomian does a dead-on impersonation of George W. Bush when the boys finally get to Texas and parachute onto "the ranch," where George W. invites them to join him in a private room designed as a hideout from the "scary" Dick Cheney. Not much substance to the President Bush scene, but it's funny.

As usual, the South gets branded as the home of inbred idiots and racist Klansmen. This is too familiar and overused to carry any weight, but it will play around the world. Geographic bias remains unchallenged in the halls of Hollywood when it comes to the American South.

John Cho plays Harold, and Kal Penn is Kumar. Penn was in one of last year's best serious films, "The Namesake," proving he can escape this madness. In his mid-30s, Penn is a bit old for the part, but the discrepancy only adds to the absurdity.

The guys are such likable goofs that they get by here with a lot of bad taste. They may be a guilty pleasure, but, there are laughs. Some big ones.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com