Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) takes place over one Friday night. Harold works at an investment bank, Kumar is putting off medical school, they smoke and get hungry. The destination is a White Castle in New Jersey. The film is nothing but the effort to reach it. The subject is not the burgers. One lead is Korean American and the other Indian American, and in 2004 an American comedy put those two at its centre. Every obstacle they meet comes out of an assumption about them: the police, the college students, the hospital. Kumar's medical school interview is the sharpest scene in it. John Cho plays Harold and Kal Penn plays Kumar. Both had only had supporting roles to that point. The most remembered guest is Neil Patrick Harris, playing himself, or a version of himself that resembles nothing about him. Known at the time for the children's series Doogie Howser, the choice was unexpected and restarted his career. Danny Leiner directed. The film underperformed in cinemas, grew on home video and produced two sequels. It runs 88 minutes. Good for: 2000s comedy, road films, and two hander chemistry. Less good for: the drug and sexual humour is heavy. Some jokes repeat exactly the assumptions the film is attacking. The plot is a string of sketches and the pace drops between them.