'The Love Guru' Movie Review

Love Isn't the Right Word to Describe the Feelings Generated By This 'Guru'

The Love Guru starts off just silly enough to be fun, but quickly moves into the nauseatingly juvenile world of penis, urine and snot jokes. Mike Myers may have come up with the idea for this movie, and for his character Guru Pitka, while on a spiritual quest following the death of his father, however on his journey he apparently failed to find any funny material to insert in his latest ‘comedy’ – and I use that term very loosely. There’s not much to laugh at in The Love Guru, an uncomfortable catastrophe of a movie from first time feature film director Marco Schnabel.

Myers’ attempt to poke fun at self-help books and such is too infantile to have any bite. There’s a limit to the number of times you can reference a man’s groin area in order to get an easy laugh, and The Love Guru quickly surpasses the penis threshold early on. Myers’ Austin Powers films were for the most part smart and snappy, though they also included cracks about body parts and physical appearances. With The Love Guru, Myers steers clear of intelligence and wit in favor of stooping to jokes aimed at pre-teen boys, making this summertime release a complete waste of time, effort, and talent.

The Story

American-born but Indian raised, Pitka (Myers) wants to be the most successful guru on the planet, which means he needs to become more popular than Deepak Chopra. And how exactly does a guru judge popularity? Why, of course, with being invited to appear on Oprah’s show. If only Pitka could be embraced by the reigning queen of daytime television, then he would no longer feel like a second class guru.

But Guru Pitka will not earn the admiration of Oprah or any woman until he learns to love himself first, or so says his teacher, Guru Tugginmypuddha (Ben Kingsley). Oh yeah, his name is pronounced exactly how you’ve sounded it out. Hysterical, right? And get this, Pitka was raised in the tiny village of Harenmahkeester. Wowza, that’s a real belly-laugher right there, isn’t it? But wait, the name bit only gets better when we meet Jacque Le Coq Grande, a hockey goalie with a grand ‘le coq’. And then there’s Coach Cherkov… The Love Guru’s just jam packed full of these wiener zingers.

So, Guru Pitka can’t become #1 in his field until he handles a case so difficult, so high profile that Oprah’s people will sit up and take notice. One such case falls into his lap when Toronto Maple Leafs star Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) falls apart on the ice after the wife he dumped takes up with LA Kings goalie, Le Coq (Justin Timberlake). Maple Leafs owner Jane Bullard (a horribly miscast Jessica Alba) admires Pitka’s techniques and hires him on to mend the Roanokes' marriage, which should help the team’s chances of winning the Stanley Cup.

The Cast

Mike Myers hams it up as Guru Pitka, his first new character since Austin Powers. But where Austin Powers grew on audiences over the course of the film franchise, Guru Pitka’s not likely to grow on anyone over the age of 12 over the course of one movie. Pitka's like that obnoxiously weird uncle who does inappropriate things in front of company. By the end of 88 minutes, I was ready to say goodbye and good riddance to Pitka forever. By the way, the short running time is the one positive thing that can be said about The Love Guru.

Romany Malco is normally pretty funny in supporting roles, but Myers gave him absolutely nothing to work with as the ‘Tiger Woods of hockey’. Malco’s relegated to being Myers’ straight man, which is unfortunate as it’s possible to count on one hand Myers’ jokes that actually worked. Jessica Alba is a fish out of water playing the owner of a professional hockey team. And as the love interest for Guru Pitka, there’s not even a smidgen of chemistry between she and Myers (who is nearly 20 years her senior). Also totally out of place is Sir Ben Kingsley playing Pitka’s cross-eyed guru who uses a game involving brooms and buckets of urine as a key part of his teachings. Want to see Kingsley in a much better movie? Check out The Wackness.

Verne Troyer, aka Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies, has a key supporting role in The Love Guru as the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and of course his diminutive stature is the butt of dozens of easy jokes. Meagan Good just puts in time as the wife who trades in an offensive player for a goalie. Good’s given nothing to do at all except look pretty and pissed off.

Strangely enough, it’s pop star Justin Timberlake who comes across as the funniest guy in the film. With a super exaggerated Canadian accent, Timberlake takes it so far over the top he needs binoculars to see the rest of the cast.

Also faring surprisingly well in a tiny supporting role is Stephen Colbert, although it would have been funnier if one of the teams had a bear for a mascot so that Colbert could riff on the film’s pro-bear agenda. Colbert delivers some of the best lines in the movie as a drug addicted play by play announcer who never censors the words that come out of his mouth when he’s high.

The Bottom Line

I wonder why the LA Kings and the Toronto Maple Leafs agreed to have their team names used in this film. Obviously the reps from both teams didn’t take a close look at the script before signing on. If they had, chances are they wouldn’t have said yes to being a part of a movie in which a key scene (one that's supposed to be one of the funniest bits in the movie) involves two massive elephants humping in the middle of a hockey rink during a playoff game. Oh yeah, that’s entertainment.

Sales at the concession stands may suffer as The Love Guru is one movie you shouldn’t eat or drink anything while watching. It’s a hard film to stomach even while not munching away on popcorn and treats. Between the urine and the booger jokes, The Love Guru is a real test of one's ability to control feelings of nausea. Save your money, and the contents of your stomach, and skip The Love Guru.

GRADE: D

The Love Guru was directed by Marco Schnabel and is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language, some comic violence and drug references.

Theatrical Release Date: June 20, 2008