Silas P. Silas (Method Man) is more then just your average drug dealer
although he does sell drugs. He has his own lab where he concocts remedies
for all ailments as well as growing a little bud for entrepreneurial
reasons. When his best friend and customer Ivory (Chuck Davis) dies
unexpectedly Silas vows to keep the promise he made and enroll himself in
college to try and have a better life. There's only one obstacle and that
is he has to pass the THC exam. Jamal King (Redman) is another stoner whose
mother pressures him into taking the test so that she can put his college
diploma on the wall next to her sons barber certification and her
daughter's hair weaving degree. The two stoners meet up just outside the
exam when they both hotbox their cars in hopes that getting high will help
them pass. It's at this special occasion that Silas's light's up some weed
that he made using the ashes of his dead friend and through the magic of
the high Ivory appears and helps them through the test. They both score
high marks and the newfound friends now have the pick of any college they
want. Together they settle on Harvard after the chancellor (Fred Williard)
assures them that the girls there are top notch. Harvard presents an all
new series of problems for the boys as their party lifestyle doesn't fit in
with the prestigious school. The school's Dean (Obba Babatunde) just
happens to be a black man who managed to bury his urban roots and is afraid
of what these students represent to his past. This causes him to do
everything in his power to make sure that their tenure at Harvard is short
lived. After only a short time the boys manage to find themselves with
female companions. For Silas this is archeology student Lauren (Lark
Voorhies) who is working on a research project that will bring a lot of
donor money to the University while Jamal hooks up with Jamie (Essence
Atkins) the black daughter of the vice president of the United States who
likes things a little on the wild side. Meanwhile the boys forget to study
and their grades begin to drop rapidly and this causes them to fall under
the required 2.0 scholarship average. What's worse is that it's final exam
time and their precious Ivory brand smart weed has gone missing. Can the
stoners get themselves out of this predicament or will Dean Cain get his
wish and have them booted out of college.
"How High" has been marketed as a pot smoking comedy along the lines of
"Half Baked" which has become the title that movies in this genre are now
measured up to. The problem is that "How High" isn't really all that funny.
In fact I'd hazard to guess that you might need to actually be high to get
anything more out of it. Since I'm not a pot smoker I wasn't really
expecting too much of the film but even then the smallest of my
expectations were nowhere near being met with this film. It starts off
pretty well but by about the 45 minute marker I was ready for the movie to
end. The plot if you can call it that is non existent and that leaves the
film without a firm platform to work off of. There are really only two
types of jokes or scenes in the film and they both are overdone early on.
The movie is just one long weed joke after another and even then these
jokes always seem to fall flat. If it's not a marijuana joke then it's a
scene involving women and though these are amongst the film's stronger
moments some of them are still rather demeaning to members of the fairer
sex. The pain doesn't stop there though as director Jesse Dylan surrounds
the two protagonists with the most stereotypical and moronic group of
supporting characters known to man which include the spoiled stuck-up rich
kid whose in college because of his parents, the quirky exchange
student/child protege, the dumb and obsessive hall monitor type and many more.
If "How High" had any chance to overcome the numerous problems with the
plot then it was in the performances but even they come up short. Method
Man and Redman may have collaborated on some excellent musical projects
including "Rappers Delight" from the "Wedding Singer" soundtrack but their
lack of acting ability can't help them fumble their way through a feature
length motion picture. To give some credit to the rappers they on occasion
had solid comedic timing but since the laugh count is quite low this wasn't
enough to sustain my interest in their characters for the entire 95
minutes. The supporting players performances were not that much better
either and in some instances had me wondering what exactly attracted them
to the project. Certainly stars like Fred Williard and Spalding Grey are
not so hard up for work that they'd accept just about anything presented to
them. In Williard's case it hasn't been that long since his excellent work
in "Best of Show". Striking another name off of the Where are they now?
list "Saved by Bell's" Lark Voorhies appears in the film as the smart
girl Lauren. The film's best performance comes from Mike Epps (All About
the Benjamins) who plays the film's pimp. Although the reason for his
character's appearance in the film doesn't make a lot of sense and seems to
come from left field Epps does give a strong comedic performance that made
me want to see more of this side character then that of Jamal and Silas.
The biggest problem with the film is the inexperience of all the primary
talent involved from the writer on down. The film is written by Dustin
Abrahams whose only other writing credit is the 1999 b-movie "The Runner".
The film suffers from just about every cliche and stereotype in the book.
There wasn't one minute in the film that I felt like I didn't already know
what was going to happen. He also makes it tough to care about the stoners
as the characters of Jamal and Silas are just so boring and unoriginal that
they come across as being a combination of every other stoner character
that came before them. The poor writing makes first time director Jesse
Dylan's work even harder as he has to try and craft something enjoyable and
funny out of material that is anything but. He manages to achieve this in a
few places but they are spread so far apart that the gaps between jokes are
very noticeable. The pacing suffers because of this and by the end of the
film the opening which showed moderate promise is completely
forgotten. There just isn't enough going for the film and as it stands I
can't give this film a recommendation. It's not the worst comedy I've seen
but it's far from the best.
