In ‘Harold and Kumar,’ politics makes for strange bongfellows

A serious filmmaker (Errol Morris) has made a serious political documentary (“Standard Operating Procedure”) that is playing in a handful of Chicago theaters, but far more Americans will be getting their degrees in political science this weekend from “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.”

And that’s not such a bad thing. Like its predecessor, “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” this second outing laces its copious gross-out gags, pothead humor and female nudity with the smartest social satire this side of “The Daily Show.”

As the title suggests, “Guantanamo Bay” is even more brazen about its politics. After Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are mistaken for terrorists on a flight to Amsterdam, they’re sent to Guantanamo Bay by a rabidly racist homeland security honcho (Rob Corddry in ultimate ugly American mode).

The pair manages to flee before the torture begins, only to run into more emblems of American ignorance, from the Ku Klux Klan to George W. Bush.

Cho and Penn play off each other with perfect comic timing, making even the most juvenile scenes work better than they should. Neil Patrick Harris also returns as a boozing, blazingly heterosexual version of himself.

Yet the picture delivers more than pothead giggles thanks to its subversive spirit. Sadly, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is a movie we need as much, if not more, than “Standard Operating Procedure.” After all, we often laugh at things because they’re true.

Read more by movie editor Josh Larsen at LarsenOnFilm.com.