Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald rating: * * *

Talk about redeeming features. We all know that racism is bad. And that any movie from the same folks who brought us Dude, Where's My Car? is likely to be bad too. But a comedy about racism from the Dude guys? How bad is that?

It's actually pretty good. Well, for a comedy about two guys who get really stoned, really hungry but really sidetracked in their mission to sate themselves, it is really stupid.

But it's also rather sweet and thoughtful in its own way and it has - of all things in a film which features the screen's ugliest hillbilly ever, a cheetah under the influence and one scene of spectacularly awful toilet humour featuring twins - a moral.

To wit, racism is stupid. And those overachieving Asian guys? They're guys too, okay? Which means they have guy-needs.

Actually, Kumar's (Penn) desires can be a little off-beam, especially when he fantasises about a marrying a giant bag of bud. But he's under pressure to follow his Indian American family's wishes into medicine.

His Korean American friend Harold is an entry-level Wall St guy who gets work dumped on him by his Wasp colleagues. At home, he's trying to get up the courage to ask out the Latina hottie from down the hall.

So Harold and Kumar end up on Harold's couch on a Friday night, mulling up. While watching television, an ad for the burger franchise of the title pushes their munchies button.

Off they go into the night, looking for an outlet.

It's harder than it looks. There are redneck cops and extreme sports nuts in their way. There is a bunch of fun-challenged Korean students. There is a seriously addled former child star (Neil Patrick Harris as himself) who steals scenes and their car and possibly some strippers.

There is a sexually-outlandish backwoods couple, one of whom is an unrecognisable Christopher Meloni - of television's SVU - a very long way from home.

Yes, it does hop from one setup to another with little thought for pacing, and some gags will only seem funny after inhalation levels of Bob Marley proportions.

It's no Cheech and Chong, but it's still an excellently stupid big adventure. And afterwards, talk about hungry, dude.

CAST: John Cho, Kal Penn

DIRECTOR: Danny Leiner

RATING: R16 (offensive language, drug use, sexual content)

RUNNING TIME: 88 mins

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts