Thurgood, Brian, Scarface, and Kenny are best friends connected largely by their love of getting stoned. On a snack run, Kenny accidentally kills a diabetic police horse and ends up in prison, where the threat of being anally raped constantly looms. His friends resort to stealing and selling pot to raise bail money. Stars Dave Chappelle, Jim Beurer, Harland Williams, and Guillermo Diaz. Written by Chappelle and Neal Brennan, and directed by Tamra Davis, fairly prolific and generic comedy director whose credits include Crossroads. 1998.
As they were produced in the same year, Half Baked and The Big Lebowski can't really help but invite comparison, and especially in that light, Half Baked is a fucking disaster. It's not funny, its characters are unsympathetic caricatures of do-nothing idiot stoners, and it seems to have a low opinion of the people for whom it was ostensibly made. Now fine, Lebowski is maybe more high brow, but whatever, Half Baked wasn't even low brow funny. And what kind of stoner comedy ends with the main character giving up pot for a girl whose only real attraction is that she will have sex with him? Unstimulating, insulting, and who the hell shoots a scene in front of Sam the Record Man when you're trying to disguise Toronto as New York? I mean, christ, at least pretend to make an effort.
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