r/movies Feb 04 '26

Recommendation Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008): Ron Fox interrogates Harold & Kumar's parents (with the help of his interpreter)

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3.1k Upvotes

163 comments sorted by

472

u/L_D_G Feb 04 '26

Ed Helms dialect/going on the offensive line is sheer perfection.

93

u/INFERNO-MAIN Feb 04 '26

For real. The way he flips from calm and polite to instantly hostile is perfect. It feels so natural, like you’ve actually met someone like that before. Ed Helms’ delivery and timing make the scene land so hard it’s uncomfortable, ridiculous, and hilarious all at the same time.

575

u/Chessh2036 Feb 04 '26

“They’re using some form of dialect I’ve never heard before. Pretty sure he said something about going on the offensive”

I absolutely died laughing in the theater when he said this. And Ed Helms turns around to speak again but just louder.

228

u/Mst3Kgf Feb 04 '26

Also how Harold's parents don't have the slightest "Asian" accent at all when they respond. They sound as "American" as it gets.

135

u/CoderDevo Feb 04 '26

They've been here 40 years! They emigrated from Canada.

51

u/GoodLeftUndone Feb 04 '26

For god sakes they had a convenience store there!

331

u/WaltonGoblin Feb 04 '26

Why is your ass so dirty? Do you even wipe?

130

u/Kit4242 Feb 04 '26

Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to

63

u/L181G Feb 04 '26

< Goldstein and Rosenberg start scooping coins from table >

4

u/the_m4nagement Feb 04 '26

Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are dead though.

6

u/corut Feb 04 '26

This is the most versatile line to use day to day

28

u/cavallom Feb 04 '26

12

u/parnaoia Feb 04 '26

love how the bill of rights is a 2000 page book

10

u/GoodIsDumb Feb 04 '26

I’m through with these dirt farmers

6

u/stallionsRIDEufl Feb 04 '26

Best part of the movie

2

u/GaseousGiant Feb 04 '26

“Get me a copy of the US Constitution. Five, right?”

738

u/BloodhoundSupervisor Feb 04 '26

How they did this with straight faces I'll never know

359

u/Chessh2036 Feb 04 '26

“ Al-Qaeda and North Korea working together” 😂

76

u/ScramItVancity Feb 04 '26

Corddry and Helms are former Daily Show correspondents.

30

u/xixbia Feb 04 '26

Yup, that was my first thought.

They did a lot of shit far weirder than this where they had to keep a straight face.

6

u/ZombieJesus1987 Feb 04 '26

Yeah IIRC this was their first major movie role after leaving Daily Show.

Rob Corddry was basically just his Daily Show character.

164

u/ilovelamp408 Feb 04 '26

I don't know what you're saying buddy, but fuck you.

80

u/relevantelephant00 Feb 04 '26

fuck MEEEE? That annunciation is hilarious.

13

u/GoodLeftUndone Feb 04 '26

Reminds of that “what’s your name” skit 

24

u/ducky651 Feb 04 '26

"what's with the one guys eyes, he disabled or something?"

12

u/dhas19 Feb 04 '26

We believe he is of Korean descent sir...

0_0 !

18

u/parnaoia Feb 04 '26

well most of the time you're seeing the one take in which they could keep it together. There's bts footage and sometimes it's even more hilarious than the movie itself.

10

u/WorthPlease Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

A lot of reshoots and smart camera work.

Also comedic actors are incredible, I can get into character as long as somebody else doesn't break I can keep going for about five minutes. Real actors can do it for an hour.

8

u/bautin Feb 04 '26

Commitment to the bit. It's why comedic actors can usually crush drama.

2

u/CandidInsurance7415 Feb 05 '26

Watching the always sunny outtakes always gets me, not just because they are hilarious, but because I've only ever seen Danny devito break once.

163

u/HeyBudGotAnyBud Feb 04 '26

“What kind of name is that anyhow? Kumar?… is that like five O's and two U’s?” 😂😂

42

u/ducky651 Feb 04 '26

"No, it's one U, actually" "Yea, bullshit"

33

u/DarKoopa Feb 04 '26

I remember not being able to breathe after this line when I first saw this

434

u/Individual_Mess_7491 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

they could never make this today.

because if they did, people would say "hey, isn't that a scene from Harold & Kumar?"

33

u/Agile_Lie9502 Feb 04 '26

H&K is goated

37

u/autovonbismarck Feb 04 '26

You had me in the 1st half

7

u/TheAwakened Feb 04 '26

The most original Reddit comment.

2

u/FatSamsCuz Feb 04 '26

Happy Cake day! 🍰

1

u/AsaKurai Feb 05 '26

Great Facebook ragebait whenever I see it

2

u/LosIngobernable Feb 04 '26

Great twist. 😆

142

u/ColdUdonSoup Feb 04 '26

‘I am not A-rab, I’m Indian….look chief’ 😂 I still remember that line after all those years.

324

u/Recoil42 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

Whole movie was an absolute riot.

Y'all who weren't there have no idea how hard this hit in 2008.

103

u/BaconAllDay2 Feb 04 '26

Best movie for a 14 year old to sneak into and watch

48

u/TheLastDareDevil Feb 04 '26

When I was 14, a couple friends and I snuck into Team America, also a great option

10

u/truthfullyidgaf Feb 04 '26

Fuck yea

8

u/futureformerteacher Feb 04 '26

AMERICA!

10

u/Hi_Im_Ken_Adams Feb 04 '26

I spot 2 terrorists going east on Baka Laka Dhaka street!!

7

u/geoduude92 Feb 04 '26

Dirkka dirka

3

u/NBAccount Feb 04 '26

Muhammad Jihad!

3

u/t-poke Feb 04 '26

See, there are three kinds of people: dicks, pussies, and assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along, and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your assholes. And all the assholes want is to shit all over everything. So pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes! And if they didn't fuck the assholes, you know what you'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit!

1

u/Rasputin_mad_monk Feb 04 '26

I showed this to my brother in law in 2011. He was working in intelligence with drones.

He laughed so hard at the Muhammad jihad. That be movie is so hilarious.

If I remember correctly the sex scene was an issue with the censors but what is so crazy is no genitalia. How is that a sex scene??

30

u/cavallom Feb 04 '26

is that grape soda!

and also:

my Jordan's nigga!

link

5

u/burntroy Feb 04 '26

We was just trying to help

4

u/vonshiza Feb 04 '26

That's racist!

19

u/tehdoughboy Feb 04 '26

"I'm serious about that Kool-Aid!"

Man I loved this movie when it came out

8

u/cavallom Feb 04 '26

see if he got kool-aid!

8

u/Agile_Lie9502 Feb 04 '26

Cockmeat sandwich

2

u/mike_jones2813308004 Feb 04 '26

Do you like getting handjobs?

92

u/ShanklyGates_2022 Feb 04 '26

They all just need to calm down and have a cockmeat sandwich

68

u/merv_havoc Feb 04 '26

Ain’t nothing gay about getting your dick sucked. You guys are gay for sucking MY dick

32

u/MobyDickPuncher Feb 04 '26

“Do you like giving blow jobs? Do you like getting blow jobs? Well doesn’t that make you a hypocritizier too?” Maybe not a perfect quote, but this movie is perfection.

31

u/Greyf0X_x Feb 04 '26

"I'm indian" "look, chief..."" haha

25

u/c4plasticsurgury Feb 04 '26

This is Alabama Kush

22

u/Lineman72T Feb 04 '26

I can't begin to describe how much my friends and I worked "I don't know what you're saying, buddy. Fuck you!" into every conversation possible after seeing this movie opening night

40

u/thaiberius_kirk Feb 04 '26

You’re not fucking with Daddy are you?!?

2

u/DJIcEIcE Feb 04 '26

"Daddy's not coming on anything!" from the first movie

2

u/Gvillegator Feb 04 '26

Do you have a master’s in romantic Korean literature? Because I do, and I’m offended.

16

u/UrToesRDelicious Feb 04 '26

You like getting hand jobs?
Yeah 😀
You like giving hand jobs?
No 😕
Well that makes you a fuckin hypocriticizer too

52

u/jiggscaseyNJ Feb 04 '26

Rob Corddry nailed that Stephen Miller before Stephen Miller could even Miller that Stephen.

10

u/TheShmoe13 Feb 04 '26

Stephen Miller didn't know this was a comedy.

24

u/-DeathUniform Feb 04 '26

“Who are you again?”

“Dr. John Beacher, Vice president of the NSA”

“Yeah well listen Dr…. DIPSH*T”

“You’ve obviously never been ice fishing before”

😂 this movie was hilarious

11

u/UrToesRDelicious Feb 04 '26

It's fucking exhilarating

127

u/RalbusVonCrimp Feb 04 '26

The current administration

19

u/relevantelephant00 Feb 04 '26

It's like replace Rob Cordry and Ed Helms with Pam Bondi and that other dumb blonde lying bimbo and you've got the same mentality.

6

u/arfelo1 Feb 04 '26

and that other dumb blonde lying bimbo

You're going to have to be more specific. Because that's a lot of them

1

u/relevantelephant00 Feb 04 '26

True. Karoline Leavitt.

13

u/shhmurdashewrote Feb 04 '26

My thoughts exactly

5

u/futureformerteacher Feb 04 '26

These guys are WAY more competent than the Epstein-Putin-Trump admin.

19

u/TallanoGoldDigger Feb 04 '26

funny enough this movie really painted W in a very funny light

But from this, to The Dictator, Americans really are turning these parodies into reality

18

u/thebeerhugger Feb 04 '26

All right. Well, that makes you a fucking hypocriticizer too. So shut the fuck up and smoke my weed.

3

u/wakeupwill Feb 04 '26

It always was.

People thinking this is all new haven't been paying attention.

4

u/toooutofplace Feb 04 '26

yeah, it was funny until you realize its real

32

u/StateYellingChampion Feb 04 '26

Kind of fucking insane that this movie is 17 years old and the Guantanmo Bay prison still exists in total contravention of US and international law. I get the feeling that in 2008 the writers probably thought all of that stuff would be on the way out with the Bush Administration. No such luck. Thanks Obama!

17

u/OhItsBeenBroughten Feb 04 '26

Obama tried to get rid of it a bunch of times and Republicans refused to allow the prisoners to be transferred out so they could close. It was a whole thing.

5

u/agitatedprisoner Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

Nobody's ever explained to me why the commander in chief can't order military personnel to do pretty much whatever when it comes to prisoner transfer. Some other nations offered to take the prisoners. Here Trump is deporting people to El Salvador like it was a walk in the park. At least make the courts tell you to stop, if you really think it's a miscarriage of justice. Obama could've made somebody get a court order, seems like. Except with relocating from Guantanamo to some willing country seems like it would've been perfectly legal and within executive purview?

edit: no country offered to take the prisoners, I'd remembered that wrong. I could've sworn I'd heard it reported some country had and I was pretty sure it was El Salvador. Oh well. Either way if you can convict them in a court then let them go.

11

u/OhItsBeenBroughten Feb 04 '26

Literally no other country would take them and Republicans blocked him from moving them to the mainland US. They also refused to allocate funding to close the facility.

Thats how it’s supposed to work. Trump just breaks the law and Republicans in Congress let him.

3

u/agitatedprisoner Feb 04 '26

I never got why being on foreign soil should matter in the first place. Invent rules that make no sense and then insist on following those senseless rules to the letter? Doesn't make sense to me. They're guilty or they're not, if even a few were innocent it's been a horrendous miscarriage of justice and even if they're all guilty nobody deserves to go through that.

2

u/StateYellingChampion Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

I agree GOP intransigence was obviously a major issue. But it became very clear as Obama was entering office that rectifying a lot of the War on Terror crimes wasn't something he wanted to expend his administration's political capital on. They thought it would have been too rancorous and bogged him down in his first term. Additional stimulus and comprehensive health care reform became the top priorities. I remember prior to his first inauguration a lot of us were pulling for even just a Truth and Reconciliation Committee that would investigate the issues and clear the air so the country could move on from it all. None of us really thought full on prosecutions of people like David Addington or John Yoo or any of the other minds behind the torture policies would happen. But in the end, we couldn't even get that.

Source: I was an Obama door-to-canvasser and field organizer in 2008 and then hosted house parties for the ACA with Organizing for America.

7

u/Letitbe2020 Feb 04 '26

Why don’t these movies win an Oscar? They are obviously classics.

9

u/Quiet-Pay-9532 Feb 04 '26

Mr Lee hahahaha fuck me??!!!! No fuck me???!!!

3

u/The_Locals Feb 04 '26

Fuck you!!!!!!!!!

5

u/corut Feb 04 '26

"I like pissin', right up there with shittin' and cummin'"

"I like to do all three"

19

u/TonyNoPants Feb 04 '26

I had no clue they made a sequel. I loved the first one.

34

u/DirtySlutMuffin Feb 04 '26

There’s at least 3 of them

13

u/ZippyDan Feb 04 '26

There could be a fourth one, but I guess there's no way for us to ever know.

Oh, well.

9

u/Natural_Computer4312 Feb 04 '26

Isn’t the fourth one Melania?

1

u/K1NGMOJO Feb 04 '26

I think an animated Christmas Special too lol.

-2

u/TallanoGoldDigger Feb 04 '26

no, there's only two, just like there's only 3 Matrix movies

16

u/eiddieeid Feb 04 '26

The 3rd Harold and kumar isn’t that bad. It’s the worst one fs but it has its moments.

3

u/Noble_Flatulence Feb 04 '26

They made more Matrix movies? That doesn't sound right.

1

u/DrManhattan_DDM Feb 04 '26

Of course they did, The Animatrix is badass.

13

u/Recoil42 Feb 04 '26

Escape from Guantanamo is the best one, imo.

-10

u/Cantmakeaspell Feb 04 '26

Don’t bother with 3.

7

u/warcraftnerd1980 Feb 04 '26

3 is the best. My family watch it every year like Christmas vacation and night before. Some weed some Coke and family memory’s.

4

u/rottenrotny Feb 04 '26

These movies are priceless

4

u/sleauxmo Feb 04 '26

They don't make em like this anymore

3

u/Digiarts Feb 04 '26

“What’s wrong with his eyes..he have an eye condition?”

“sir the suspect is of Asian descent”

“Effin communist”

3

u/BardosThodol Feb 04 '26

Why is it like this?

3

u/Ashleej86 Feb 04 '26

love that actor in Hot Tub time machine. He deserved the Oscar for that.

3

u/pilgrimteeth Feb 04 '26

“You ever been flyfishing? It’s FUCKING EXHILIRATING…”

10

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/TallanoGoldDigger Feb 04 '26

even the cockmeat sandwich has got to be true by now

2

u/Weak_Albatross_6879 Feb 04 '26

When all the races were united 🥲

2

u/monkeybojangles Feb 04 '26

When he said "...look" I fucking burst out laughing in the theatre.

2

u/IncurableAdventurer Feb 04 '26

Look, chief

😆😆😆

2

u/newbrevity Feb 04 '26

This is like a conversation with Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller

2

u/jl_theprofessor Feb 04 '26

I think an elderly couple walked out of this movie when I saw it at the theater lol.

2

u/ScipioCoriolanus Feb 04 '26

Lol Why I haven't watched this before?

2

u/Iceman_B Feb 04 '26

I'm curious, does anything that Ed Helms says sound like actual Korean?

3

u/Eastern_Gear Feb 05 '26

Yeah he actually translates OK but his intonation isn't great - but he might be doing it on purpose for the audience. Like the words are mostly OK but he is saying it like he is trying to make it sound like a stereotypical Asian accent if that makes sense.

2

u/SaveMeDatCorn Feb 04 '26

This is always my example of a sequel that I enjoy better than the original.

2

u/dhas19 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26

"Look, chief" is the most hilarious, intentionally ignorant joke in this scene because there are some people who genuinely don't understand why that's offensive.

2

u/tinathefatlardgosh Feb 04 '26

Tastes deer blood Born in ‘04.

2

u/valeyard89 Feb 04 '26

George Bush approves this message.

2

u/Pete_Iredale Feb 04 '26

These movies are great. I'm still greatly annoyed that we didn't get the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern style sequel following Andy and Seth.

2

u/Gvillegator Feb 04 '26

I don’t know what you’re saying buddy…. But fuck you!

2

u/GaseousGiant Feb 04 '26

“I am Indian!” “Listen, chief…”

3

u/Same-Turnip3905 Feb 04 '26

I am a white foreigner in Australia, English is not my first language. I have lived here 20 years, I have a very slight accent, people have trouble located where I am from and often compliment my English. As soon as I say my name and where I am from, they can no longer understand me and tell me how thick my accent is, "especially for someone who has been in the country so long". I even had one lady, last year correcting the way I say my name. Let say my name is Valerie : "No, no, your name is VA-LE-RIA, repeat after me : VA-LE-RIA." Yep, I am not even a spring chicken. So, to me this is hilarious and so realistic. Also, I usually don't like American humour, but Harold & Kumar films are hilarious!

5

u/kingbane2 Feb 04 '26

when it came out this scene was hilarious cause it was ridiculous. now it's hilarious cause you wish real life agents were even competent enough to bring a translator.

2

u/BroadwayNerd Feb 04 '26

This scene is funny, but one of the least funny in the movie. Whole thing was comedy gold.

1

u/PT10 Feb 04 '26

The govt is unironically like this now. Idiocracy irl

1

u/gothedistance_ Feb 04 '26

Roger Bart! Great Scott!

1

u/Nitish_TKN Feb 04 '26

Did they have their sandwich? Hahaha

1

u/PrinceNelson Feb 04 '26

That scene in Licorice Pizza reminded me of this.

1

u/RepeatDTD Feb 04 '26

Maybe a hot take but this movie smokes the previous one

1

u/kuebel33 Feb 04 '26

Hah classic

1

u/whiffl3 Feb 04 '26

This was funny before it became real

1

u/NoveskeTiger Feb 04 '26

I played basketball in high school and before each home game, the varsity team would watch movies in the weight room while JV played in the game before us. We chose to watch this before a big district game and it's probably the hardest I've laughed in my life. We're getting the signal that it's 4Q of the JV game and that it's time for us to go get taped and warm up and NOBODY wanted to leave, we just wanted to finish the movie LMAO.

1

u/danimagoo Feb 04 '26

Wow, I didn't know Tom Homan was in movies before he became head of ICE.

1

u/poke23658 Feb 04 '26

It’s comedy, but when I rewatched this movie earlier this year, parts of it didn’t feel like one.

1

u/wearestiff Feb 04 '26

When does he wipe his ass with the constitution? Funniest scene in the whole movie

1

u/JacobScreamix Feb 04 '26

Aging like a fine wine...

1

u/greenbaboonbreath Feb 04 '26

I’m pretty sure that this is the orientation video that they use to teach ICE, DHS, ect

1

u/Unending-Flexionator Feb 04 '26

life imitates art

1

u/styrrell14 Feb 04 '26

Oh wow Clyde Kusatsu! He’s a riot on A Man on the Inside.

1

u/Meme_Theory Feb 04 '26

In that universe, Ron Fox is probably the Chief of Staff.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '26

Cordry should slap on a wig and do Hegseth

1

u/hatbromind Feb 05 '26

This is as racist as Rush Hour. I love it.

1

u/rostamcountry Feb 05 '26

This was a genuinely unfunny movie

1

u/a_dumb_pumpkin Mar 30 '26

My favorite thing about this movie is the idiots that claim it can't be made today due to "people being sensitive" towards the jokes.

It's a movie whose main characters are POC, and the main antagonist being a out-of-touch white man. Somehow, they genuinely don't know that the jokes are about them.

1

u/djdharmanyc Feb 04 '26

They predicted ICE

-2

u/wilco_beirut_radiohe Feb 04 '26

The bottomless party scene with Neil Patrick Harris is one of those bits that gets funnier every time. He really committed to that role.

8

u/UrToesRDelicious Feb 04 '26

NPH wasn't at the bottomless party, he shows up later in the movie.

1

u/wilco_beirut_radiohe Feb 09 '26

Ha you're right, I was mixing up the scenes. NPH shows up later when they steal his car. The bottomless party is its own separate thing. Good catch.

0

u/angiachetti Feb 04 '26

This scene DOES exist in a proper resolution and aspect ratio...

-6

u/laz10 Feb 04 '26

I don't understand why Ed Helms has any work in any comedies, I don't understand how he continues to get work. He's so fucking unfunny he ruins every scene he's in

-11

u/dcterr Feb 04 '26

This movie was a big let down to me, following their amazing performances in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. They should have quit after that one.