The Love Guru Review

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 06.23.2008

The saddest comedy in years.


Mike Myers- Guru Pitka
Jessica Alba- Jane Bullard
Verne Troyer- Coach Punch Cherkov
Justin Timberlake- Jacques Grande
Romany Malco- Darren Roanoke
Meagan Good- Prudence Roanoke
John Oliver- Dick Pants
Manu Narayan- Rajneesh
Ben Kinglsey- Guru Tugginmypuddha
Stephen Colbert- Jay Kell
Jim Gaffigan- Trent Lueders
Telma Hopkins- Lillian Roanoke
Deepak Chopra- Himself
Directed by Marco Schnabel
Screenplay by Mike Myers and Graham Gordy
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language, some comic violence and drug references
Runtime- 89 minutes
Website: http://www.theloveguru.com/

"The Love Guru" is one of the saddest comedies in recent memory. Sad because, despite great effort from dang near all involved (especially from star Mike Myers) and some potentially funny ideas, the flick just doesn't work. In its present state, "The Love Guru" acts like a rough draft of a comedy that could eventually succeed but still needs a whole bunch of work to get there.

Mike Myers stars as Guru Pitka, an American born pseudo Hindu self help romance expert who is hired by the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL hockey team, Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) to try to reconcile Maple Leads star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his wife Prudence (Meagan Good) so Darren can leads the team to winning the Stanley Cup. Pitka takes the job at the urging of his business partner Dick Pants (John Oliver) with the hope that a Roanoke reconciliation will lead to an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and greater personal success (meaning Pitka will equal or surpass the recognized number one self help guru Deepak Chopra). In order to do this, Pitka will have to contend with Jacques Grande (Justin Timberlake), Roanoke's rival on the hockey rink and the man having an affair with Prudence, and his own longtime inability to learn to love himself. See, Pitka wears a chastity belt, given to him by his guru mentor Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley), an item he cannot remove from his person until he, well, learns to love himself (his inability to love himself is what keeps him from having a meaningful relationship with a woman, which is where Alba's character obviously fits into the story). And that's pretty much the basic plot of the movie.

So why the heck doesn't the movie work?

First, the flick's tempo is way too slow. "The Love Guru" is a movie that's just a shade under ninety minutes yet plays like it's two-and-a-half hours. There'a a bit of the "skit-to-skit" feeling to the jokes and situations, sort of like the first two "Austin Powers" movies, but, unlike those movies, "The Love Guru" just plays each scene straight and moves to the next scene without a quick musical interlude or flashy jump cut thing. And some of the scenes just take forever to get anywhere. Take, for instance, the opening bit in Pitka's ashram where he explains his various methods to loving yourself and finding romance, etc. Some of the bits are kind of funny but, as a whole, it's just Pitka standing there spelling out his personal philosophy. Then there's the bit on the airplane with Alba's Jane. The only funny thing that happens in this scene is Pitka always pulling out a copy of the book he's talking about (a bit I wish the movie did more of). The rest of it just lays there. And then there's the "dinner" scene with the "nutsack" thing. The wordplay bit is funny (crude and juvenile, sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't funny), but since there's nothing else really going on it's just wacky wordplay that stops being funny after about a minute. The flick needs some serious cutting, some time compression, some serious "jazzing" up. For instance, there's a bit at the beginning where Pitka sings "9 to 5" while playing a sitar. It's funny for about a minute because it's ridiculous. But then it just keeps going on and on and on. Why didn't the "9 to 5" arrangement feature more of the up tempo "Bollywood"esque big and huge musical stuff that appears later in the movie? There are other scenes that play exactly the same way, but I won't get into them because, well, I don't want to rehash them. If and when you see the flick you'll find out.

Second, the Guru Pitka character isn't that interesting. We really don't get a sense of his personal problems or his issues with Kingsley's Tugginmypuddha or even his rivalry with Deepak Chopra. They're just story points that are thrown out there to tell us Pitka has conflicts instead of showing them to us. Why isn't Chopra a bigger part of the movie, appearing at the beginning doing something that annoys Pitka (and I'm talking about Deepak Chopra himself, not some kid that plays him as a kid)? And then there's the whole "learning to love himself" thing that doesn't play as well as it should, mostly because we're never made to understand what that whole thing is about. The only time we see any real personality from Pitka is when he argues with Verne Troyer's Punch Cherkov, the Coach of the Maple Leafs who also happens to be a midget curmudgeon. Their scenes are great fun (especially the scene in Coach Cherkov's office, where everything is really small). But, then again, while Pitka's arguing with Pitka is funny, they don't fit into anything else in the movie. You can tell throughout that Myers is really, really, really trying to make this work (he fights a rooster, which should automatically be funny but just isn't funny at all), and while in a way you can appreciate that effort, you just wish there was something to applaud him for. And the motorized pillow should be funnier than it is.

Third, both Romany Malco and Justin Timberlake, who take up more movie than they probably should, are both horrendous as hockey rivals. Malco, who made everyone laugh in "The 40 Year Old Virgin," isn't going to make anyone laugh here as the disgruntled husband with mother issues and a shaky hand that hurts his puck control. He's just incredibly boring (and is it me or does the movie fail to make adequate use of the idea of a star black hockey player? Because the movie seems like it's trying to do that but for whatever reason just can't or won't). And Timberlake, who tries very hard to be wacky, using a faux French accent and hamming up every second of screen time he's given, just doesn't cut it at all. His Jacques Grande character introduction is kind of funny, but after that it's all downhill. He's got a huge cock. Ha. So what? And Jessica Alba doesn't fair all that well, either. Sure, she looks insanely hot and all, but that's all she gets to do. She has no character to really play, and since she's not that great an actress she's left to flail around and try to react to whatever the hell Myers is doing. And Ben Kingsley just bombs as Tugginmypuddha. He's just awful. It's just sad that all their effort is for naught.

Fourth, the movie features a bar room brawl that ends with a character with a pool cue shoved up his butt. And it isn't funny at all. There's a serious problem with your movie when a cheap joke like that, that should make the audience at least chuckle, falls flat and does nothing.

And fifth, there's the whole Mariska Hargitay thing. Pitka constantly uses "Mariska Hargitay" as a greeting to his followers, something that stops being funny as soon as Hargitay, who we all know from her starring role on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," shows up in a cameo to say that she's not at all upset about her name being used as a greeting. It happens very early in the movie, along with a cameo by Val Kilmer that I just didn't get. Why couldn't the story feature the Hargitay cameo towards the middle of the movie, or more towards the end? It just seems like something you'd want to hold off on until, as a joke, it can pop and create a laugh. It just doesn't here.

There's plenty more wrong with the flick. So what works? Troyer is great as the Leafs coach. A midget hockey coach is always going to be funny regardless of the mediocrity surrounding it. Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan appear as sportscasters for "Hockey Night in Canada." While they are doing the same kind of shtick we've seen a million times in other comedies, Colbert's drugged out drunk Kay Kell and Gaffigan's befuddled pseudo straight man Trent Lueders work well enough to make their bits worthwhile (although it does seem as though they're acting in a different movie from everyone else). The Morgan Freeman voice over thing is funny (a voice over machine with a "Morgan Freeman" setting is brilliant). John Oliver's Dick Pants is funny because he looks like a member of the Beetles and his British accent is just ridiculous. And Manu Narayan, as Pitka's assistant Rajneesh, is funny (would have loved to see more from him). His Dell computer gag is great. And it's always nice to see Telma Hopkins on the big screen.

So, who can we blame for this mess, beyond Myers? I'll say we should blame director Marco Schnabel. This is his first effort as a full fledged director, and it just seems like he doesn't know what he's doing throughout. It's like he's just there to set up the camera and, well... that's about it. The flick just moves from scene to scene with no life behind any of it. Myers and company should have hired someone like a Dennis Dugan or a Jay Roach, people with experience, who know how to establish a rhythm (heck, I bet even John Badham or Mark L. Lester would have done wonders with this kind of movie, or one of those people who direct "Family Guy" and "The Simpson's"). A steady hand is always preferred in these kinds of situations, not a newcomer with no apparent vision. Why not get Keenan Ivory Wayans? He basically failed with "Little Man," a movie that had a bunch of potential but suffers from the same things "The Love Guru" suffers from. Why not give him a second chance to "fix" that style?

I'd advise you not to see "The Love Guru." It's just not worth your time. But, if you just have to see it, wait for HBO. Don't even bother with the DVD. Just wait for TV.

So what do we have here? Gratuitous Morgan Freeman voice over, gratuitous "Hockey Night in Canada," attacking Judi Dench, gratuitous Stephen Colbert, a black hockey player, street hockey, gratuitous Justin Timberlake with a huge cock, gratuitous midget hockey coach, gratuitous Jessica Alba, gratuitous "9 to 5" on a sitar, riding an elephant, an ostrich egg, butt flossing, feet fighting, head up the butt, a motorized pillow, gratuitous saying "Mariska Hargitay," gratuitous Deepak Chopra, gratuitous Ben Kingsley, gratuitous Mike Myers head on a small body, gratuitous "Electric Company" reference, a nose whistle, gratuitous Jessica Simpson, gratuitous Val Kilmer, gratuitous Mariska Hargitay, gratuitous Oprha reference, self help books with weird names, leg massaging, a guard rooster, gratuitous Meagan Good being hot, a "Quebec pizza" (a Poptart with ketchup), "Jacking off" an elephant, a urine soaked mop fight, gratuitous corn dog eating, gratuitous "Woo Hoo" song, "The Altoids Elbow to the Face of the game," fun with cotton candy, hitting a midget with a hockey puck, gratuitous midget office, a beard bag for the shower, gratuitous "Wayne's World" "Bohemian Rhapsody" reference, gratuitous Telma Hopkins, making fart noises in a mug, a bar room brawl that just doesn't work, chair breaking, glass to the head, pool cue up the butt, gratuitous "More Than Words" interlude, punch to the balls, a telestrator dick joke, gratuitous airport Cinnabon, doing the "robot," gratuitous funny "Hockey Night in Canada" animation bits where the team logos do harm to eachother, gratuitous midget heart attack, gratuitous heart paddle gag, gratuitous elephant sex, gratuitous bit where someone says "What is it you can't face?" but it sounds like "What is it cunt face?," gratuitous Mike Myers and Kanye West, and gratuitous Steve Miller Band song.

Best lines: "Well, can we win the Cup without Roanoke?," "Mariska Hargitay, your holiness," "Dick Pants. Send him in," "Thank you, Rajneesh. You're my compass," "What does Deepak Chopra have that I don't have?," "Two million dollars. That's a lot of cheese," "I am not blind. I am just severely cross eyed. I know. It's weird," "If I sit like this any longer I'm going to pop my teabag," "Hey, any bears in the cave?," "Who is this prick?," "You are a midget," "Jane, the city of Toronto doesn't hate you," "It looks like he's smuggling a shnauser," "Don't look at me with that tone of voice or I will punch you in the shirt," "You're an idiot. Yes I am," "I would not want to be his nutsack," "Way to go, Roanoke, you jagoff," "You have a firm grasp of the obvious," "Hippie queer," "This ain't 'Driving Miss Daisy,' I'll break your damn fingers off," "I am making diarhea noises with my cup," "It's a bar fight," "I'm so hungry I could eat a skunk's bottom," "Omar Shariff my balls!," "Not now, Kato," "You're back on drugs, aren't you?," "My name is Guru Pitka, and I wear a chastity belt!," and "If you ever sucker punch me again I'll kick your ass all the way back to the Keebler factory!"

The 411: "The Love Guru" has all of the potential in the world to be one of the funniest movies of the year, as there's plenty of stuff there to work with, but, for whatever reason, it just doesn't work. The whole movie is a mess. As I say in the introduction, as it bares repeating, this movie feels like it's about half done, that it needs to stew a little longer, tweaked and reworked until it's, well, better. What we get is just sad. Pathetic.

Final Score:  4.0   [ Poor ]