"Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" proves the United States really is the land of equal opportunity.

	'Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle' Rating: R for strong language, sexual content, drug use and some crude humor. Starring: John Cho and Kal Penn. Director: Danny Leiner.

No longer do you need leading men who look like Ashton Kutcher or Seann William Scott to star in a road-trip movie about twentysomethings who have smoked themselves silly and are jonesing for a pyramid of tiny White Castle burgers. You can make that comedy with one actor born in Korea and another of Indian heritage but born in New Jersey -- with both willing to address the silly, outdated stereotypes about their ethnic groups.

"Harold & Kumar" is yet another movie about one very long night where the characters encounter crazies and cops and chicks (who lose their allure after they, oh so graphically, gain the nickname "the diarrhea twins") and come out on the other side changed. For the better.

Since this is R-rated and aimed at young men -- who will be thrilled when they find it a year or two from now on HBO -- there are bare breasts, hooligans begging for a comeuppance, a bag of marijuana so big it inspires fantasies, a tow-truck driver named Freakshow with a surprising wife, and an extended cameo by an actor who shucks off his boy genius TV role of years past.

The title roles are played by John Cho as Harold, a shy overworked junior analyst at an investment banking firm, and Kal Penn as Kumar, a slacker who could be a brilliant doctor but has no interest in following in his father's footsteps. They are engaging characters, and the stereotypes are smashed, but the movie from the director of "Dude, Where's My Car?" falls back on dopey, done-to-death scenarios.

It takes something fresh but dresses it with the usual toppings, although trying to ride a wild cheetah like a pony was a new one on me.