Maybe the way out is to cast the ethnic guy as the hero and the white guy as the horny doofus.) The movie is a barfathon that takes full advantage of the apparent MPAA guidelines in which you can do pretty much anything with bodily functions except involve them in healthy sex. So they cast an ethnic guy, and everybody complains about the negative stereotype. (Casting directors face a Catch-22: They cast a white guy, and everybody wants to know why he had to be white. I cannot complain, since the hero's buddy in every movie in this genre is always a sex-crazed zealot, and at least this film uses non-traditional casting. That leaves, let's see, Kal Penn as Taj, the Indian-American student who lands the job as Van Wilder's assistant, and spends much of his time using a stereotyped accent while reciting lists of synonyms for oral sex.
Tara Reid is remarkably attractive, as you may remember from "Josie and the Pussycats" and " American Pie 2," but much of the time, she simply seems to be imitating still photos of Renee Zellweger smiling. Of course she's the girlfriend of the vile frat boy, and of course her investigation inspires her to admire the real Van Wilder while deploring his public image.
She's a journ student who wants to do an in-depth piece about Van for the campus paper. Is Van Wilder too good to be true? That's what Gwen ( Tara Reid) wonders. Jack Black in this role would have been a home run. That makes him, alas, a little boring, and Reynolds (from ABC's "Two Guys and a Girl") brings along no zing: He's a standard leading man when the movie cries out for a manic character actor. Ryan Reynolds is, I suppose, the correct casting choice for Van Wilder, since the character is not a devious slacker but merely a Permanent Student.