On a mildly positive note, Tamra Davis' Half Baked has a few chuckles. These include stereotyped pot smokers ranging from the conspiracy theorists who see snipers in the bushes on a 20-dollar bill to the deadpan guy on the couch (Steven Wright) and the artistic types (Janeane Garofalo). There's the first toke by a gang of geeky twelve-year olds who think the stuff isn't working until they're flying over the city. Even the cute nicknames for the head-shop gear warrant a giggle.
What doesn't work is the story and this film's inability to sustain a running gag. Thurgood 'Sir Smoke-a-lot' (David Chappelle), Scarface (Guillermo Díaz), tie-die brain-dead Brian (Jim Breuer) and the reefer-happy kindergarten teacher Kenny (Harland Williams) smoke a lot of wacky tobacky and have fairly mundane lives revolving around surviving the munchies. When Kenny ends up in jail after feeding junk food to a diabetic horse, his buddies must find a way to spring for bail. They end up selling high-grade pot but (we're told) they're "not drug dealers." Meanwhile, Thurgood chases after the "female" Mary Jane (Rachel True).
Besides a totally unbalanced, unimaginative and stupid plot, Half Baked's dialogue is lame. There are congenial cameos by Tommy Chong, Janeane Garofalo, Jon Stewart, Stephen Baldwin, Willie Nelson and Snoop Doggy Dog, but ultimately their presence hardly redeems a production that makes the Cheech and Chong movies seem golden in comparison.
Those in on the joke will appreciate the base humour, but I predict the movie's puerility and weak narrative will bore even them. When Chappelle, a stand-up comic who is also responsible for the script, cracks "you smoked yourself retarded," one can't help wonder if the movie's producers did the same. At least the effect wears off quickly.
