Sunday, June 22, 2008
A+E, Movies, Reviews

You won’t love Mike Myers’ ‘Guru’

A short review of "The Love Guru"

George Kraychyk/Paramount Pictures
Mike Myers in “The Love Guru”

“THE LOVE GURU”
Mike Myers, Jessica Alba
Directed by Marco Schnabel
Rated PG-13
Wide release

Some Hindus have expressed fears that “The Love Guru” would mock their spirituality and culture, but they come off no worse than human beings in general. The movie, which stretches the plot with musical numbers, runs only runs 87 minutes, but seems twice that long: Who would have thought they could cram so many jokes about male genitalia into an hour and a half? The obsessive crudeness goes beyond juvenile to infantile.

Guru Pitka (Myers) was raised in India, where he and Deepak Chopra studied together at the feet of a guru (Ben Kingsley) who put Pitka in a chastity belt with orders to wear it until he learns to love himself so he can love others. This creates a credibility problem, since any character Myers plays exhibits more self-love than anyone since Onan.

The chastity belt is inconvenient when Pitka falls for Toronto Maple Leafs owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), whose star player (Romany Malco) has been in a slump since his wife (Meagan Good) ran off with L.A. Kings goalie Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake).

A lot of intended humor in the screenplay by Myers and Graham Gordy involves the use of Indian-sounding words, like gurus “Tugginmypudha” and “Hathasmalvena.” Like most of the movie’s jokes, these aren’t even double-entendres; entendres-and-a-half at best. Pitka’s standard greeting is “Mariska Hargitay,” which Pitka must say more than 50 times (he’s going to keep saying it until you laugh).

From suggestive acronyms (“Be Loving & Open With My Emotions”) to a duel with urine-soaked mops, “The Love Guru” is designed to titillate third-graders, and not the most discerning third-graders at that. 1 STAR—Steve Warren