Mike Myers' 'Guru' goes for the gross
Angry Hindu political action groups have demanded that Canada and Great Britain ban Mike Myers' new comedy "The Love Guru." They have also demanded the U.S. rate it NC-17 so kids can't see it, all because the protesters assume it offends the Hindu religion.
Good taste for sure. The art of filmmaking maybe. Little people, absolutely. But the Hindu religion? Come now.
How seriously can you take a movie whose comical high water mark - judging by the laughter at a Tuesday night press screening in Chicago - consists of happy elephants fornicating in a packed hockey stadium?
This movie's idea of exchanging bodily fluids is two guys swatting each other with urine-soaked mops. You want intellectual discourse? "Liquor up front!" Guru Pitka proclaims to his followers, "Poker in back!"
As that snickering sixth-grade joke suggests, "The Love Guru" is stupid, but not cleverly stupid like the "Naked Gun" comedies, or imaginatively stupid like "There's Something About Mary," or deliberately stupid to mask a political viewpoint, like Adam Sandler's "You Don't Mess With the Zohan."
"The Love Guru" is just flat out stupid for the sheer fun of it. The entire movie has been conjured out of Myers' unrelenting, preadolescent fascinations with body functions, physical abnormalities, sexually suggestive language and gross-out activities. (Want some tea filtered through a guru's nasal cavities?)
Some of it is funny.
Myers plays Pitka, an American-born guru who envies the fame and stature of his former peer, the revered Deepak Chopra. Pitka's greedy agent ("Daily Show" regular John Oliver) says all he needs is a shot on Oprah, like Chopra had.
That stands to become a reality when Jane (the ever-fetching Jessica Alba), owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, hires Pitka to save their chances for the Stanley Cup. Jane's star player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), has been off his game since his wife (Meagan Good) dumped him for well-endowed hockey superstar Jacques "Le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake).
If Pitka can reconnect the Roanokes like a spiritual Dr. Phil, Darren will play, the Leafs will win the Cup and Pitka will receive $2 million.
The credits for "The Love Guru" say Marco Schnabel, an assistant director on Myers' "Goldmember," moved up to the director's chair here. Yet, the flat, visually unappetizing "Guru" has no discernible narrative style or even a good sense of comic timing.
It's as if Schnabel stepped back and let his star (and co-writer and producer) throw whatever he wanted up on the silver screen, unchallenged and unchecked by any directorial judgment or oversight.
The result is an unbridled, unabated Myers comedy that hits once for every 10 misses. The jokes become redundant (what, another dirty acronym?) and many are older than the Nantucket limerick. It's a good thing that the film tops out at a mere 87 minutes,
The PG-13-rated "Love Guru" could easily have fouled out with audiences, but Myers' raw enthusiasm for his own abject naughtiness proves to be infectious and disarming. His Benny Hill-esque "look what I'm getting away with!" attitude mitigates the nastiness of ridiculing Pitka's guru mentor (Ben Kingsley) with severely crossed eyes, and barraging the Leafs' diminutive hockey coach (Mini-Me's Vernon Troyer) with comparisons to the Keebler elves, Frodo and the Oscar statuette.
As for the Hindu political activists, they should remember that in America, nobody has the right not to be offended. If they believe that "The Love Guru" ridicules them, they should consider little people with eye problems.
They might have a case.
"The Love Guru"
Rating: 1½ stars
Starring: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake and Meagan Good
Directed by: Marco Schnabel
Other: A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG-13 (violence, language, crude humor, drug references). 87 minutes.