‘Half Baked’ gives enjoyment
By John Grundman
IV Leader Movie Critic
There are a number of different kinds of pot smokers. They
range from the "avid non-smoker" all the way to the straight up pothead with
many other classifications in between. Despite your feelings about pot, however,
it's pretty safe to say that anybody, with a good sense of humor who isn't
easily offended, can enjoy “Half Baked.”
The premise of “Half Baked” is really quite simple. Kenny
(Harland Williams) makes a journey to buy munchies after an early evening smoke
session, but feeds some of the tasty snacks to the wrong diabetic horse. The
horse belongs to a cop and Kenny is jailed for killing a police officer. It is
then up to Thurgood Jenkins (Dave Chappelle), Brian (Jim Breuer) and Scarface
(Guillermo Diaz) to raise the money to bail out their "bud" Kenny.
Scarface comes up with the idea to steal weed from the pharmaceutical building
Thurgood works for.
At the suggestion of "the guy on the couch" (Steven Wright),
the crew decides to raid the pharmaceutical lab. However, the raid goes bad.
The Fully Baked Edition can be bought in either wide screen
or full frame formats depending your preference. The transfer on this film is
well done. Color is the key in this movie. Nearly every scene has bright
contrasting colors and green can be found in most places.
As far as the way it sounds, I found no problems. There are
no real action sequences and the plot is mostly dialogue driven. The music is
clearer than before, but it's no big deal. Also included are French and Spanish
language tracks along with subtitles in English, French and Spanish.
The extras in this film are plentiful. There is a commentary
track by director Tamra Davis, but it's no big deal because of long pauses mixed
with some decent stories about the cast and production. Next is a segment
entitled "Five Minutes with 'The Guy on the Couch'" which I thought would be an
interview with Wright. I'll leave it up to you to see what it really is.