Horrible Bosses: Margin Call
By Adam Nayman
The Occupy Wall Street protestors who assault the hapless Kenneth Park ( Bobby Lee ) near the beginning of A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas are a sight gag: an excuse to restage James Caan’s tollbooth execution in The Godfather (1972) with hucked eggs in lieu of bullets. “They’ve lost their jobs…you’d be angry too” explains Harold (John Cho) moments before the yolky outburst in an attempt to mollify his friend, who thinks they’re all dirty, bearded psychos. The line can also be turned around as a sympathetic nod to the proud stoner franchise’s predominantly college-age audience, many of whom would happily self-identify with that demographic. Stilted and slack where the original was supple and spontaneous (though still an improvement over the confused first sequel), H&K 3 is interesting primarily for the way it negotiates Harold’s hard-fought arrival amongst the proverbial 1%. It frames his newfound wealth and privilege—a high-paying job, a massive house, a lavish Yuletide spread—as the end result of giving up his adolescent preoccupations; and it’s telling that by the end of the film, the defiantly juvenile Kumar (Kal Penn) has been similarly convinced of the benefits of “maturity.” That the filmmakers still permit the heroic duo a final clandestine puff is more of a sop than a statement of purpose.
