This time, “Harold & Kumar” seek freedom, not burgers

If you loved the reefer-fueled hijinks of “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” (2004), are you preordained to laugh yourself stupid when the duo goes waaaay down south in "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay"? Does Willie Nelson keep Visine in his glove box?

Creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg – making co-directorial debuts after sharing screenplay credit on the first movie – stick with the formula that made them Hollywood's brashest comedic newcomers. Once again, straight-laced, dependably flustered banker Harold Lee (John Cho) and skirt-chasing slacker Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) embark on an uproariously un-P.C. odyssey across a racially prejudiced American landscape. They even have another bizarre – and indecently funny – encounter with “Doogie Howser” actor Neil Patrick Harris, gamely playing himself as a hallucinating, prostitute-flagellating mushroom freak.

There are some not-so-trivial differences. This time, Harold and Kumar aren't jones-ing for cheap, square-shaped hamburgers but freedom, dude. Mistaken for terrorists when Kumar whips out a futuristic water pipe on an overseas flight to Amsterdam – "bomb" and "bong" sound so much alike, no? – the duo fall into the clutches of a cartoonishly bigoted Department of Defense flunky, played by former "Daily Show" faux-espondent Rob Corddry (awesome, finally, in a role that properly exploits his weird, sado-sinister rhythms).

Denied their proverbial "one phone call," Harold and Kumar are shipped to the eponymous detention facility in Cuba – here impressionistically depicted as a festering Third World hoosegow filled with defecating goats and hulking, rapist guards.

Naturally, they escape in short order, hop a raft to Florida and hoof it to Texas to plead their case to the GOP-connected, preppie-devil fiancé (Eric Winter) of Kumar's ex-girlfriend (Danneel Harris).

Along the way, they encounter the expected menagerie of rednecks, Klan revelers and inner-city bruisers, but the thing that makes Harold and Kumar sufferable as race-signifiers is their low capacity for self-pity. There's no wailing about the injustice of it all. These guys love America, fast-food warts and all.

The movie's essential generosity of spirit comes to a ticklish climax when the boys light one up with Dubya himself, played spot-on as a paternally repressed good ol' boy by comic James Adomian.

Which isn't to say that social rage doesn't boil under the surface of “Harold & Kumar” – it's just the white, liberal kind. Turning the table on Corddry's character, a fed-up NSA analyst (Roger Bart from “The Producers”) lets it fly: "It's people like you who make Americans looks stupid! Well, we're not stupid! And we're not gonna take it anymore!" Moments like that give the sequel a targeted satirical bite that the original lacked. And they serve to argue the filmmakers point: Maybe the war on terror is a laughing matter, after all.

“Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay”
Stars: John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, Roger Bart, Neil Patrick Harris
Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Rated: R (strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive language and drug use)
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Grade: B