Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
| Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle | |
|---|---|
| File:Haroldandkumarposter.jpg | |
| Directed by | Danny Leiner |
| Written by | Jon Hurwitz Hayden Schlossberg |
| Produced by | Greg Shapiro |
| Starring | John Cho Kal Penn |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates | July 30th, 2004 |
Running time | 88 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $9,000,000 (estimated) |
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (released in some countries as Harold and Kumar get the Munchies or American High, because there are no White Castles outside of the U.S.) is a movie that was released in 2004. The plot revolves around the two title characters, who decide to go to the fast food restaurant White Castle after smoking some cannabis, only to find themselves on a crazy adventure instead. The main characters are Harold Lee, played by John Cho, and Kumar Patel, played by Kal Penn.
The film was written by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, and directed by Danny Leiner. It also has appearances by Paula Garcés, Anthony Anderson, Ethan Embry, Jamie Kennedy, Bobby Lee, Christopher Meloni, Malin Akerman, Ryan Reynolds, Shaun Majumder, David Krumholtz, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Neil Patrick Harris (as a parody of himself).
The Cherry Hill, New Jersey White Castle location is fictional. The ending scene looks nothing like the real, relatively flat Cherry Hill. The beginning scene in the office building, is the IBM office Building located in Markham, a city bordering north of Toronto. A few scenes were also shot in Mississauga and in Etobicoke, a suburb on the west end of Toronto, Canada. The college scenes were also filmed in Canada - at the University of Toronto's Hart House. However, contrary to the plot of the movie, there is no White Castle located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey - it had to be trucked in. (In reality, at least 4 different White Castles are located within five miles of Hoboken, NJ where Harold & Kumar reside: Jersey City, Manhattan, Union City, and North Bergen). White Castle's own proximity results for Hoboken
This movie was fairly well received by critics,[1]and a sequel is planned, Harold & Kumar Go to Amsterdam (working title).
Plot
Saddled with more work by an irresponsible co-worker, Harold Lee heads home. Meanwhile, his best friend Kumar Patel has just blown another medical school interview on purpose. But now, with the day behind them, it's another Friday night and these two best friends watch TV and smoke weed while deciding what to do for dinner that night. They end up seeing a commercial for White Castle, a restaurant they had not been to for a while, and decide to go there for dinner. They drive to New Brunswick, where they think there is a White Castle.
Once in New Brunswick, they realize the White Castle there had turned into a Burger Shack. They pull in, and the Burger Shack employee tells them that the burgers there just "don't cut it" compared to White Castle. They find out about one in Cherry Hill, 45 minutes away and agree to make the trip.
They first stop in Princeton to buy more weed. Harold visits Cindy Kim, to avoid being called a twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). Kumar goes around asking people if they had any weed. Kumar would get weed from Bradley Thomas, overpaying him for eighty dollars. The boys are trapped in the middle of a game of "Battleshits" in a ladies' bathroom on campus while being forced to flee from campus security for smoking marijuana. Instead, the campus security would arrest Bradley for having a giant bag of marijuana.
Along the way, Kumar stops to urinate, while Harold would start working on his laptop. A raccoon enters the car, which prompts a visit to the hospital for Harold after being bitten. Despite being told Harold doesn't have rabies, Kumar is confronted by his father and brother, who berate him for not taking his medical school interview seriously. In a touching moment, he says he'll try harder and hugs his father and brother, but only to pickpocket medical passes to find medical marijuana.
However, things don't go exactly as planned, as they are intercepted by a male nurse (who confuses Kumar with his brother) and brought into the emergency room to operate on a gunshot victim. Amazingly, Kumar completes the operation and saves the patient's life, and armed with directions to the White Castle from the victim, the two head back on their journey.
Back on the road, Harold says everything's going exactly as planned because they got directions to White Castle, and he finished his work. The boys notice that Maria is at a late-night showing of Sixteen Candles, but when Kumar suggests picking her up and taking her to White Castle, Harold panics and presses on the gas, sending the duo careening into a ditch, blowing a tire out. As Harold discovers he doesn't have a spare in the trunk, Kumar reveals that he got high one night and threw it off of a bridge to see if it would float. Freakshow arrives with his tow truck, and they are both taken to his compound with his (improbably attractive) wife, Liane.
Soon after fleeing from the property when Freakshow tries to entice the two men into a foursome, they find a hitchhiker who happens to be Neil Patrick Harris from Doogie Howser, M.D., who himself happens to be extremely horny and coming down off an ecstasy high, looking for another fix.
With their hitchhiker in tow, Harold and Kumar stop at a gas station/convenience store to ask for directions, leaving Neil Patrick Harris in the unlocked car with the keys still in it. The two of them run into the Extreme Sports Punks again, who are destroying the store with, among other things, a kayak thrown into the air with one of the Punks in it.
After getting directions from the clerk and Kumar almost getting into a fight with one of the Punks, Harold and Kumar come outside...just in time to see Harold's car pull away with Neil Patrick Harris behind the wheel. Harold lets out his frustrations on Kumar and decides to try and call for help.
Harold sees a payphone across a street with a red crosswalk sign. They try to get it to go green, but Kumar urges Harold to cross anyway considering it is late at night and there is no traffic around. Unfortunately, as Harold steps off the curb, a police unit appears out of nowhere and catches him. Kumar gets into a fight with the cop, who is bigoted and won't listen when he hears what Neil Patrick Harris had done. After Harold gets a $220 jaywalking ticket and Kumar continues his rant, Harold soon gets mad and accidentally hits the police officer (thanks to Kumar, the intended target, ducking just in time), thus landing him in jail.
In jail, Harold meets a man who was busted because he was black, and he tells Harold his story, that he learned a long time ago that there's no sense getting all riled after a bunch of idiots give you a hard time. In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should. Soon after, Kumar calls the cops with a phony story about a shooting in the area, which all of them respond to. He then proceeds to bust Harold out of jail, but not without stopping to notice the gigantic bag of weed Bradley from Princeton had before. After they break out, weed in tow, Harold and Kumar run into a cheetah, which had escaped from a zoo the day before. After the cheetah takes a liking to Harold (thanks to some beef jerky he had in his pocket), he, Kumar, and the cheetah all smoke some of the weed and decide that they will ride the cheetah back to civilization. However, this backfires when Harold is knocked off the cheetah and has a hallucination about he and Maria, from which he is woken up by Kumar licking him.
Kumar tells him he has bad news and worse news-the worse news the cheetah took them in the wrong direction, and the bad news, in the fall Harold's laptop was completely destroyed. Harold angrily asks how the computer breaking is not worse than going in the wrong direction. Kumar states that he thought the White Castle situation was more important because it affects both of them, whereas the computer breaking only affected Harold. Having had just about enough, Harold decides to forget about going to White Castle and says that he needs to go back to his office to redo all his work. To make matters worse, when Harold and Kumar reach the road and attempt to flag down a car, Neil Patrick Harris zooms by in Harold's car with two strippers, snorting cocaine off of them.
Coming up to Hot Dog Heaven to call a cab, Harold looks in the window and sees Rosenberg and Goldstein. After seeing them enjoy their food, Harold decides that he needs that feeling too. Suddenly, they have one final confrontation with the Extreme Sports Punks, in which the leader hits Harold in the head with a ball. Harold, heeding the advice of his cellmate, decides they need to finish what they started, and head to White Castle...via stealing the Punks' truck and heading to Cherry Hill.
Just after they arrive in Cherry Hill however, an officer who was pursuing the punks sees the truck and gives chase. This leads to them driving off the road to lose the officer and then getting stuck on the edge of a cliff, from which they see the White Castle. At first, it seems they're trapped, but Kumar discovers a hang glider hanging on the truck's roof rack. Initially Harold expresses some doubt about using it, but after a pep talk in which Kumar talked about the American Dream and comparing it to what they were doing, he goes along with it.
Things are going smoothly until they crash into a tree, fall to the ground, and bounce down a hill...landing right across the street from the White Castle. They head across the street and into the White Castle. Harold orders 30 burgers, 5 orders of fries and 4 cherry cokes, Kumar orders the same with the substitution of diet cokes instead, thinking he'll eat too much and gain weight.
Unforunately, they realize they have no money. Luckily, Neil Patrick Harris shows up. Neil says he has had a craving for White Castle thanks to Harold and Kumar, and offers to pay for their meal as a peace offering for stealing the car. After giving them $50 to pay for the meal (and an additional $200 for cleaning and detailing, thanks to Neil making "a few love stains in the backseat"), the burgers come.
They have the best meal of their lives. After they finish, Kumar then proclaims that he's decided to become a doctor. While Kumar is having his "epiphany", Harold's co-workers arrive after a night of partying, despite telling Harold they would be with clients all night. To Kumar's surprise, Harold summarily berates the two men (something he would never had done the day before) and even shoots down their chances of scoring with their two female companions. As the two return to civilization, they enter the elevator only to run into Maria. Kumar makes up a phony excuse to let the two of them have some time together and exits the elevator.
While Harold gets off to a rocky start, noticing some luggage and mentioning to Maria "Sure gotta lot of baggage," he finally reveals his feelings to Maria and makes out with her. Maria then mentions that she is leaving for Amsterdam and will be back in 10 days. Once in their apartment, Kumar persuades Harold that the two should join Maria on her trip to Amsterdam, first saying that Maria might not be available because she'd be surrounded by suave, sophisticated guys. When Harold expresses his reluctance, Kumar reminds him "You know what's legal in Amsterdam, don't you?", in reference to the common misconceptions about drugs in the Netherlands. (Marijuana is illegal in the Netherlands, but the law is not enforced).
Characters
- Harold Lee (John Cho)- A shy, intelligent Korean American investment banker. He has a crush on Maria, who lives in his building. He's also a constant workhorse from a couple of irresponsible work superiors. John Hughes' Sixteen Candles is one of his favorite movies.
- Kumar Patel (Kal Penn)- Harold's best friend, Kumar is a second generation Indian American. He is extremely talented in the field of medicine, but resists going to medical school, perhaps because his father and brother are both doctors and because he considers himself an opponent of the establishment. He is much more confident (and laid back) than his best friend.
- Maria Quesa Dilla (Paula Garcés)- Harold's love interest, an attractive woman of Latina descent who lives in an apartment in Harold and Kumar's building. Harold eventually gathers the courage to ask her out. She agrees, but is on her way to Amsterdam for 10 days. It is also revealed that Maria shares Harold's taste in movies with her being seen by Harold and Kumar going to see Sixteen Candles at a local movie theatre that was holding a late-night John Hughes movie marathon.
- The Extreme Sports Punks - A group of obnoxious, junk food munching, adrenaline-fueled ne'er do well white punks who torment Harold, Kumar and just about any poor soul in their path. Their favorite exclamation is "Extreme," and at least one of the gang has an embarrassing fondness for power ballads by female pop music singers and groups.
- Rosenberg (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Goldstein (David Krumholtz) - Harold and Kumar's Jewish counterparts and friends. They constantly talk about sex, they smoke pot from a shofar-shaped bong, and they pepper their speech with Jewish phrases. They also spend their night in a quest for food, in their case, going to "Hot Dog Heaven," after turning down Harold and Kumar's invitation to come with them to White Castle and saying that they were staying at home to watch The Gift on HBO to see the scenes in the movie where Katie Holmes is naked and shows her breasts. Their names are a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the writers (who based these characters loosely on themselves) have expressed interest in making a movie about what these characters did while Harold and Kumar were going to White Castle, ala "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead."[2]
- Cindy Kim (Siu Ta)- A Korean friend of Harold's. She is more interested in Harold than he is in her. She wants him to spend time with her East Asian Students' Club at Princeton University - a group which is apparently geeky, but who stage a wild party, which Harold and Kumar miss, but would tell and suggest to Rosenberg and Goldstein later on in the film when the two groups meet up and talked about their separate quests (in the case of Rosenberg and Goldstein, their quest is going to Hot Dog Heaven while Harold and Kumar's quest is to White Castle) .
- Burger Shack Employee (Anthony Anderson)- An overweight African American, he is very helpful to Harold and Kumar, but seems mentally unbalanced, claiming that he and "Pookie" put animal semen in the special sauce, and rampaging through the Burger Shack kitchen, shouting that he (and Pookie) should "burn this motherfucker down." Advises the duo that they should go to White Castle if they want a genuinely good meal.
- Freakshow (Christopher Meloni)- A religious, tow truck driving, car repairing white fanatic, friendly Freakshow helps the protagonists when their car breaks down. He is covered in boils, yet has a very attractive wife, whom he met through the choir at his church. His real name is Randy.
- Liane (Malin Akerman)- Freakshow's attractive wife. She is willing to perform sexual favors for Harold and Kumar; however, they decline when they realize that Freakshow also wants to be involved.
- Bradley Thomas (Hippie Student) (Dov Tiefenbach) - A student at Princeton. He enjoys listening to Phish and writing poetry of questionable merit. He overcharges Kumar for weed, claiming he is a "business hippie." He is later arrested for possession of marijuana. He (Hippie Student) was the original owner of the Giant Bag of Weed that Kumar falls in love with when he was trying to free Harold from the prison cell in the police station Harold was imprisoned in by Officer Palumbo and his fellow racist police officers.
- Christy (Kate Kelton) and Clarissa (Brooke D'Orsay) - Two attractive, upper-class Princeton girls from England who agree to meet up with Harold and Kumar. However, the guys are repulsed when they covertly witness the girls engage in the vulgar contest of "Battleshits" in the girls' bathroom stalls.
- Giant Bag of Weed - A giant bag of weed with whom Kumar falls in love and, in a fantasy sequence, they court, wed and enjoy a loving, if stormy, relationship. GBOW doesn't know how to make decent coffee, and Kumar punishes her by beating her.
- Officer Palumbo (Sandy Jobin-Bevans) - A deeply racist white police officer who imposes a large fine ($220) on Harold for jaywalking, even though there were no cars on the road. He arrests Harold for assault when Kumar eggs him on, causing Harold to provokedly punch him. A scene shows him being arrested for his racist actions as part of the "news story" that shows with the credits.
- Neil Patrick Harris - Of Doogie Howser, M.D. fame, "NPH" is in an extremely horny state after taking a few ecstasy tablets at a party when the two protagonists pick him up hitchhiking. He steals Harold's car while he and Kumar are in a gas station, in order to pick up female prostitutes and cocaine. He later makes amends by paying for the pair's very large White Castle order and paying Harold some money for cleaning expenses after making a few "love stains" in the back of Harold's car.
- Tarik Jackson (Gary Anthony Williams) and Nathaniel Brooks (Gary Archibald) - Two African Americans, the former a professor at Rutgers, the latter an attorney. Both are wrongfully arrested by Palumbo, and his (equally racist) fellow police officers. Jackson and Brooks eventually sue the State of New Jersey for racial discrimination and police brutality. Tarik has two gay fathers and according to himself, "an extremely large penis", which "keeps him happy". Advises his fellow cellmate Harold that the universe unfolds as it should when wrong things happen to him.
- Dr. Patel (Errol Sitahal) - Kumar's father. He insists that Kumar go to medical school. Kumar is loath to comply, until he has a change of heart toward the end of the film, inspired by his experiences over the night. He has explicitly expressed to Kumar that he is "not coming on anything."
- Male Nurse (Ryan Reynolds)- A male nurse that works at the same hospital that Kumar's father and older brother work. He takes Harold and Kumar (who were disguised in operating theatre scrubs at the time so they can score some medical marijuana from the hospital) into an emergency surgery room to treat a man that was shot. Kumar shows off his medical skills and saves the man's life and the male nurse was very impressed (and sexually aroused at the same time).
- Billy Carver (Ethan Embry)- A white financial investment executive at work superior to Harold. He's getting over a breakup that happened months ago, and based on his friend/co-worker J.D.'s advice, he passes his work onto Harold and deliberately lies to his face. Ultimately, he and J.D. are caught by Harold who chastises the two shortly before ruining their chances with the attractive female companions with them.
- J.D. (Robert Tinkler) - Billy's laidback white co-worker and essentially the jerk of the two. Determined to show his buddy a good time, he advises him to pass his work off to Harold in an ignorant remark, and when Harold gets the work threatens to tell the boss on him if he doesn't do it. When caught, Harold humiliates him, and he can neither come back with an insult of his own or flip Harold off properly (raising his pointer finger instead of his middle finger).
- Creepy Guy (Jamie Kennedy) - A creepy white guy in a ragged suit, mustache and greasy haircut. Urinates directly next to Kumar in an open space, which creeps out Kumar.
Stereotyping
Unlike other films in the stoner film genre (see Dude, Where's My Car? and Dazed and Confused), Harold and Kumar also heavily deals with the issues of racial discrimination and stereotyping, particularly as applied to Asian males in modern day America. The movie was praised by many for featuring minorities in the lead roles without stereotypical accents or nerdy qualities. In fact, Harold and Kumar are different from most leads in "stoner flicks" because they are intelligent men, yet still manage to be "cool."
Harold is an intelligent Korean investment banker whose current job greatly impresses the Korean population at Princeton University. He is constantly faced with the stereotype of the intelligent and nerdy Asian guy, but at the same time, fears being called a Twinkie by his Korean friends. It's explained that a Twinkie is, like the snack food, yellow on the outside, white on the inside.
Kumar is of Indian heritage, who like his friend Harold is extremely intelligent, especially within the field of medicine. Kumar also has the fear of becoming a living stereotype and, despite having incredible MCAT scores, refuses to attend medical school offering the explanation "Just because you're hung like a moose, doesn't mean you have to do porn."
To juxtapose the serious-yet-subtle undertones dealing with racial tolerance, we also have Harold and Kumar's Jewish equivalents and across-the-hall friends, Rosenberg and Goldstein who couldn't be prouder of their heritage. Rosenberg wears a yarmulke, they smoke pot from a shofar and even speak like old Jewish men, despite being in their early 20's.
Meekrab
Meekrab (not to be confused with mee krob) was a band founded by the nephew of director Danny Leiner, now defunct. Band members used to always wear T-shirts printed with the logo, and they purportedly got the inspiration for their band name from the Dutch word for madder, a plant used for making dye.
Throughout the movie, the character Kumar can be seen wearing a Meekrab T-shirt.