half-baked
God I hate/love weed. I just watched half-baked today after seeing it many times, but for the first time I realize how anti-weed that movie actually is in itself. Dave Chapelle is probably one of my favorite comedians and philosophers. I love the guy dearly. Not only does he get his point across entirely, but he gives it off in such a humorous way, with it's own unique style. The guy's just genious all right. I could give a detailed analysis of the whole movie, but I don't know if I would be wasting my time. Oh what the hell. So the movie starts off in a young era, where smoking weed had only been heard of by kids, and they're curious to try it. You also notice, that as Thurgood (Chapelle)tells the story, his memory of it is somewhat altered and he remembers people being there that weren't actually there. This is an immediate referrence to the effects of marijuana on the brain, giving altered judgement, memory, and perceptions. The story is told in complete dramatization. He goes on to explain how he had heard that most people don't get high their first time, but how he was really high. This is what leads him to believe that smoking weed will be a really fun thing for him. That was how he got sucked into it. It then shows his current life. He's a lowlife, and so are his roommate friends. They have menial part-time jobs that hardly make any money, and they're always close to being flat out broke. Their main income of money is from their friend Kenny that gets thrown in jail for committing a completely retarded cop-killing act while he was toasted on an idiotic munchie run. (the cop-killing act is an extremely hilarious presentation because it is shown through a diabetic horse that overdoses on sugar.) So they realize they won't be able to get their friend out of jail unless they find a quick way to make as much money as possible. 1 million dollars bail to be exact. One day while Thurgood is at work as a janitor at a pharmaceutical lab, he comes across a strikingly pleasing offer, though totally ignorant and oblivious of his actions. The offer of course, is a pound of bud. His employer breaks him off a piece of the weed as a courteous gester for his troubles, but Thurgood misinterprets it as on offer for a drug ring, and goes on to bullshit about how his family had history in being guinea pigged with various drug-related experiments. The employer feels sympathy for him and continues to supply him with bud for his troubles. It then goes on to show a random clip of how different people smoke weed for different reasons. The kid smoking it be cool, the dad smoking it to try to find a desparate way to relate to his son, and finally, which is most funny of all, the old grandmother using it for it's intended medicinal purpose, and saying, "It's good for arthritis too." Which is a total load of crap, but hilarious. It shows Chapelle's insight on how stupid stoners misinterpet smoking weed as something that's cool to do, and how they believe that anyone in the business of weed is in it for being cool and smoking weed too. In Thurgood's drugged up mind, he'll be able to use this weed he's getting as something he can sell in large quantities, hopefully to make enough money for bail so he can get his friend out of jail. He then thinks it over and realizes how illegitimate the plan is, so he decides with his friends to try to think of a better way to get the money. It shows a time lapse, and the first thing you hear is Scarface (Guillermo Díaz) saying, "I think I have a plan. Why don't we start selling that weed that we smoked the other night." So it becomes obvious that several days have gone by where they have been trying to think of an alternate plan, but still came up dry, and eventually forgot what they were even debating their original illegitimate plan for, and their judgement became altered to the point where selling the weed seemed like the best idea again. This is such a prime example of Dave Chapelle's love/hate relationship with weed. It then goes on to show his strong, guilty relationship with anti-pot activist, Mary Jane Potman (Rachael True), who is the daughter of a big time drug dealer that had his life ruined by it. Thurgood gets the impression that her dad must have been a really cool guy, but Mary Jane (ironic pun) maintains to stand her ground. Thurgood lies to Mary Jane by telling her he's not a pothead, which is an ironic pun because it's the same thing you do with the real mary jane. He realizes he needs to become true to himself, because as this anti-pot activist, Mary Jane, makes Thurgood look at his life, he realizes how much he's been lying to himself, and when other big dealers start catching on to his business, they get greedy and try to blow him off the map and recruit him for their own business. Scarface and Brian (Jim Breuer) are total idiots in the movie, and decide to quit their jobs because they think they can rely on Thurgood's drug ring and his close relationship to rapstar Sir Smoke-A-Lot, to get them good hookups. What Scarface failed to realize though because he was too stoned, was that Samson Simpson had delivered a message across by setting him up and getting him to confess all his hookups, so that Samson Simpson could easily snake them into his business. To leave a message of serious business, Samson killed their dog without them even realizing, and Brian came up with a completely fabricated life story of the dog and how his death was due to smoking too much crack. They get lucky though by being total idiots and trying to rob a pharmaceutical lab of its supply in a completely blind and unaware fashion. But since they obviously went to jail, they blame it on Samson Simpson because they know the name sounds familiar and they know he's trouble. They strike gold by getting in on a sting operation to bring down the large drug industry that Samson Simpson was the president of. Their plan nearly falls to shit though when the cops behind them become stoned from a hotbox too, showing again how weed really messes up things. It shows even more how the weed had messed up everything with Samson Simpson, because Scarface for some reason had the idea that "Mr. Nice Guy (Thurgood)" was Jamaican, so Thurgood had to try to pull more shit out of his ass. But the sting operation ends up working because the cops maintain their responsibility, somewhat. But not everyone could get so lucky. Thurgood then finally realizes how much pot has ruined his life, so he gives it up entirely in the end, as extremely and emotionally hard as it is for himself, he realizes he needs to do it. He presents this ideal in a goofy, unique and funny way, by stating, "I love weed, I mean I really love it a lot, but not as much as I lovvvvve pussy."