Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is a 2008 American buddy stoner comedy film written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. The sequel to Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004), it is the second installment in the Harold & Kumar franchise, and stars John Cho, Kal Penn, and Neil Patrick Harris. The film follows Harold Lee (Cho) and Kumar Patel (Penn) as their planned trip to Amsterdam is derailed after being wrongly imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Originally considered as a direct-to-video release, Hurwitz and Schlossberg signed on for the film by January 2007, with Cho, Penn, and Harris returning soon after. Principal photography also began that month and concluded in March 2007, with filming locations including Shreveport and Amsterdam. Prior to release, the film faced backlash for its comedic portrayal of Guantanamo Bay, with Amnesty International mounting a campaign to highlight the testimonies of abuse and torture made by the camp's detainees.
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay was theatrically released in the U.S. on April 25, 2008, by Warner Bros., the first New Line Cinema title released after the studio's acquisition by Warner Bros. The film received mixed critical reception, with praise for the performances of Cho, Penn, and Harris, although some found it inferior to its predecessor. Conversely, the film was better received by audiences, and has gained a cult following. It was also a commercial success, grossing over $43 million worldwide. The sequel, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, was released internationally in November 2011.
Plot
After returning home from White Castle, Harold Lee and Kumar Patel decide to travel to Amsterdam, Netherlands so Harold can surprise his neighbor and love interest Maria as well as smoke Cannabis. At the airport, the duo encounters Kumar's ex-girlfriend Vanessa Fanning, who is engaged to Colton Graham, a college friend of Harold's whose family has political connections. While on the flight, passengers mistake Kumar's new invention, a smokeless bong, for a bomb and the duo is apprehended by sky marshals. Ron Fox, a neurotic and extremely racist Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, believes the duo are agents of a joint Al-Qaeda and North Korean conspiracy and sends them to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba against the advice of NSA Vice-Chairman Dr. John Beecher. After narrowly avoiding sexual assault by a guard at the detention camp due to the inadvertent assistance of two other prisoners, Harold and Kumar escape and board a Cuban refugee boat to Miami, Florida. They meet up with their college friend, Raza, at his home, who loans them a car so they can travel to Texas, hoping Colton can help clear their names.
Harold and Kumar endure several misadventures on their way to Texas, first crashing their car into an African-American neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama (in which the neighborhood offer to help), staying at the home of an incestuous sibling couple and their inbred son, then afterward escaping a Ku Klux Klan rally. Meanwhile, Fox tries to find them through several racist interrogation techniques. As Harold and Kumar hitchhike through a forest, they are picked up by Neil Patrick Harris, who manages to get them through a checkpoint set up by Fox, but then takes them to a brothel, where the mistress then shoots Harris for branding one of the prostitutes. When Harold and Kumar reach Texas, Colton agrees to help exonerate the duo. However, upon seeing Kumar reconnect with Vanessa, Colton instead delivers Harold and Kumar to Fox.