Film

'The Love Guru' Wallows in Juvenile Humor

By Daniel Montgomery

Friday, June 20, 2008

A critic should keep an open mind when he enters any film, but I confess to failing in that endeavor with regard to ‘The Love Guru’, which began its stomach-churning publicity blitz as far back as a month ago, when Mike Myers, in character as Guru Pitka, advised the American Idol finalists and made an unsavory joke about 17-year-old David Archuleta’s pubic hair. The weeks that followed saw an unavoidable deluge of television ads, talk show appearances, billboards, and posters, not one of which indicated that there was anything funny contained within the film’s 88 minutes. Just the opposite. Clips like Guru Pitka assuming a fighting stance before battling a mustachioed Justin Timberlake occupy a kind of negative space that encourages one to consult a Thesaurus to find the antonym for “laughter.” I have now seen the film. It isn’t funny. I could have written this review two weeks ago.

The good news is that it’s not as bad as it looks, which is kind of like saying food poisoning isn’t as bad a cancer, but never mind. Expecting a grand spectacle of awfulness, I was treated instead to a kind of average terribleness, and there are even one-and-a-half chuckles—I counted—courtesy of erstwhile TV host Stephen Colbert as a drug-addled sports commentator, but he should write a letter of apology to any member of the Colbert Nation who foolishly stumbles into the film to see him in it, because they’ll have to sit through the rest of it.

But now I see the hidden genius of the advertising campaign. With expectations set so low, it’s a mild relief that the film is simply unfunny. But those are the kindest words I can muster for a screenplay (by Myers and Graham Gordy) that is nothing but a string of puerile puns and hopeless ideas: Is there a reason why Myers singing “9 to 5” atop an elephant is supposed to be funny, or why there are two musical numbers that follow it as if the filmmakers are trying to will a dead joke off the ground? What passes for verbal wit is an almost abusive litany of penis jokes that are not offensive because of their vulgar content, but because there isn’t a third-grader in America who couldn’t come up with better. Characters are named Jacques “Le Coq” Grande, Satchabigknoba, Cherkov, and Tugginmypuddha. The last is played inexcusably by Sir Ben Kingsley, whose participation in this film could only be explained by a large gambling debt.

The story involves Pitka, the world’s number-two spiritual guru (behind long-time rival Deepak Chopra), who hopes to improve his standing by helping the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. To do that, he must repair the rift between the Leafs’ star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his girlfriend Prudence (Meagan Good), two of the only characters not founded on a genetalia reference, though I suspect not for a lack of trying. Pitka falls in love with Leafs owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), and she inexplicably falls in love with him. I’ll spare you a paragraph questioning the wisdom of casting Alba as the owner of a sports team; this is the least of the film’s problems.

Director Marco Schnabel, who previously worked as a second unit director for Jay Roach (‘Meet the Parents’, ‘Austin Powers in Goldmember’), allows his actors and gags to run amok and frequently breaks the fourth wall to wink at the audience, attempting to make us complicit in his crimes. But this is Myers’s brainchild, so it’s him I must hold most accountable. The star of the Austin Powers films and the voice of Shrek, Myers is often a very funny man, and in talk show appearances he seems about as nice as any self-respecting Canadian should be, but for all his characters’ ribald excesses he’s never looked as desperate as he does here, stretching a wide, empty grin across his face, mugging relentlessly, forcing joviality into a script that contains none. Did he really believe in this material, or did he, deep down, realize that it’s a turkey? He conceived of Guru Pitka while he was still making the Austin Powers films. That character produced three films and grossed nearly half a billion dollars worldwide. Methinks he shouldn’t get so attached to this one.

Visit ‘The Love Guru’ Official Website