By D Sheth

Hungry for a cock-meat sandwich served by the guardians of Guantanamo Bay? Thirsty for a little va-ji-ji at a bottomless party in South Beach? You don’t need to be stoned to laugh tirelessly at the antics of the cannabis-craving couple John Cho and Kal Penn in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Although it has been four years since Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Escape immediately reminds the audiences that they never went away in their newest exploits as mistaken deputies of al-Qaeda and Kim Jong Il.

Picking right up from where White Castle left off, Harold Lee and Kumar Patel find themselves on their way to Amsterdam in pursuit of Harold’s love crush Maria, played beautifully by the stunning Paula Garcés. Unfortunately, they only make it twenty minutes over the Atlantic before Kumar’s high-tech, homemade “bong” gets mistaken for a “bomb”. Then begins a journey through jail cells of prison sex slaves in Gitmo to pantless parties overflowing with liberal displays of genitalia (one of which had clearly suffered from an overdose of Rogaine) to the in-breeding backwaters and Ku Klax Klan infested forests of the Deep South. A cameo appearance by George Bush, just kidding, but the imitation of George Bush at Crawford Ranch is better than any Saturday-night live skit…and this won’t be the only bush you’ll be seeing.

Fair warning is required though, for the Guantanamo shoots only occupy a small percentage of the movie. Nevertheless, some scenes humorously outdo parts of Borat, especially the Jews with the pennies though we won’t say more. Most of the movie takes place in the south and features an Indian- and Korean-American mistaken for an Osama bin Laden messenger and Pyongyang agent trying to clear their name from a dim-witted Homeland Security agent who uses the Bill of Rights as toilet paper and concludes the “Ay-rabs are working with the Koh-ree-anns”.

Harold and Kumar’s relationship faithfully follows down the contemporary path of Abbott and Costello and in a warped sense Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour, but with one difference – Harold and Kumar’s friendship is believable. Directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg have been able to create the first comedy that brilliantly manages the racial typecasts of Indians, Arabs, Koreans, Jews and Americans in a comical fashion that is beyond politically correct.

What motivated the directors? “When we were in college we liked cult movies like 'Dazed and Confused' and 'Office Space' and 'The Big Lebowski,' and these were movies that weren't huge box-office smashes but sort of found an audience on DVD the year or two after the movie came out,” Schlossberg, 29, told The Associated Press. “We felt with 'Harold and Kumar' when it came out in theaters ... it wasn't going to end there.” In some scenes though, Hurwitz and Schlossberg may have tried too hard to outclass the original and may actually go a little too over the top.

Kal Penn and John Cho performed better than the first movie and adapted perfectly to the raunchier script. In fact, they may look a little too natural! The “best-performance yet” awards go to Daneel Johnson, playing Kumar’s ex-girlfriend, Desperate Housewives pharmacist and killer Roger Bart and Neil Patrick Harris, playing a satirical version of himself.

Photo Credit: Jaimie Trueblood/New Line Cinema