Half Baked (1998)
6/10
Dope is For Dopes?
20 December 2013
I really wish Dave Chappelle still did comedy and did a few more movies. The man is talented but it's fair to say he did enough. At least he left a movie left a movie like Half Baked behind. Half-Baked is about a group of guys who never grew up from their marijuana smoking days. They live together with decent jobs and smoke pot on their free time. One of the group gets arrested in one of the strangest ways possible so the other three try to deal pot to raise enough money to pay bail. Hey, what did you expect?

Despite the plot holes and silliness this is a decent comedy. Chappelle is a damn good comedian and he isn't over the top. The other two guys are extreme pot smokers and are extremely exaggerated. They are a bit annoying but they serve their purpose. Chappelle is a janitor in a science lab and the lab is doing tests of marijuana and naturally that is where Thurgood, Chappelle, gets the weed to sell. I guess you have to suspend your belief in reality. A janitor would never get away with stealing weed, but it's a movie about weed so I can let it pass.

Let's take a second to talk about how the guy got arrested. He got one million dollar bail set because he accidentally killed a police horse. The sequence was very funny. A very high man feeding and interacting with a horse. It was funny but when the horse drops dead because it's a diabetic, I lost interest. I was personally not a fan of the reason because it was way to unrealistic. A comedy can be crazy and weird but it has to be believable, to a certain point.

The scenes in prison were funny. I honestly did not expect the movie to show much time inside the prison. I expected it to resemble Doug from The Hangover where his character is completely forgotten but I'm glad he had some camera time. The standard prison stereotypes are there and it works well. The character himself was a little boring and dumb but I'm glad he was the one in prison.

The other two are a bit obnoxious but they played their roles well. Thurgood is the obvious leader and at least he is relatable. He falls for a girl who is naturally against pot smoking. It creates a secondary story and its funny to a point. Predictable, but who cares. The big star of the movie was Killer. Killer was a dog one of them bought and this dog is a beast. I fell in love with this dog. Once I saw him I was afraid of the dog being a dumb addition, but I was wrong. The dog was hysterical and it even got high. Who wouldn't enjoy a high dog?

Watching this movie high as a kite would probably be best, needless to say I did not but I should have. A movie like this is sure to have a sequence or three of them high as hell, and it did, and it was awesome. The movie opens with the four of them as kids being the first time they smoked. It was a great way to kick off the movie. High kids in a convenient store were funny, being they were 14. When they get the pot from the lab it's supposed to be the best weed ever and it sure looked like it. It made them fly. I didn't even care it was on the poorest green screen, it way hysterical.

Overall, Half-Baked a movie about stoners and it made for stoners. I loved the humor and silly antics in this movie. Sure it was hard to believe and would never ever happen in real life but this is Hollywood. Even better, this is Dave Chappelle's movie. He is one of my favorite comedians of all time and he brought his A game to this movie. Was it a good movie? Not really but it was entertaining and I've seen worse comedies. I would call this a bad movie I liked so it's a guilty pleasure. I will give it an honest Sir Laughs A lot Award and a solid WillyT Recommendation. Watch this movie high. I can't because I would not in turn produce a quality review, but you can.
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