'Harold & Kumar' Hit the Mainstream Like a Cloud of Smoke

April 24, 2008 — -- Harold and Kumar are waiting to inhale.

Their first cinematic pairing, 2004's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle," earned a piddling $18 million in theaters but grossed $60 million on DVD.

It turned stars John Cho, 35, and Kal Penn, 31, into real-life friends and launched their careers. And the fans' slow-building but potent response led to the return of the ill-fated stoners in "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay," opening Friday.

The title of the comedy says it all: Two potheads, uptight Harold (Cho) and easygoing Kumar (Penn), go to prison, break out and embark on a Neil Patrick Harris-crossed odyssey to clear their names.

And yes, Cho and Penn are both shocked that they're back together on the big screen.

"I wasn't sure if it was ever going to happen, because the first one didn't do that well at the box office. I thought maybe it was dead," Cho says. "But there's a lot of goodwill toward our movie. Our movie, in a way, is a traditional buddy road comedy, but it feels fun and new partly because you have two different kinds of faces in it."

For Penn, "the treat of working on the sequel was knowing that fans discovered it on their own. That's why we got to make the second one. It's nice knowing it's thanks to the fans. It's a silly movie about two stoners on a road trip."

'Political conversations'

The second comedy picks up where the first one left off. The guys have eaten their White Castle burgers and are on their way to stoner paradise, otherwise known as Amsterdam. At the airport, Kumar, who is of Indian descent, is singled out by security. Things get worse aboard the flight. A series of mishaps lands them in the notorious Guantanamo military prison. They're branded terrorists, and the only person who can clear their name has a ranch in Texas.

Despite the political overtones, at its heart, it's still about two outsiders trying to have a good time with their favorite herb.

"I don't think it makes a political statement," says Penn, an erudite UCLA graduate who teaches a media class at the University of Pennsylvania and campaigns for Barack Obama. "Above and beyond anything else, it's a buddy movie. It's layered with politically flavored humor. The movie wasn't designed to be political, but I think it's great that political conversations are being had because of it."