Susan Granger’s review of “The Love Guru” (Paramount Pictures)
While prominent Hindu leaders have called for a boycott of this new Mike Myers comedy because it mocks their religious concepts, I suspect none will be necessary because the gullible audience for this feeble spoof of self-help spiritualism will probably shrivel on its own.
As a child, Guru Pitka (Mike Myers) was left at the gates of an ashram in India. After years in training and developing “Mariska Hargitay” as his mantra, he’s summoned by Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, to help her star player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), who has been emotionally crippled ever since his wife (Meagan Good) ran off a rival French Canadian goalie, the enormously endowed Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake). So much for plot. Most of the screen time is devoted to Pitka’s mugging maharishi schtick, including crotch jokes, urine-soaked mops, hockey pucks to the head and elephant erotica.
Mike Myers’ interpretation of the dubiously accented swami – whom an Oprah Winfrey impersonator calls “the next Deepak Chopra” – looks like every other smirking character he’s done. But since Myers serves as producer/star/co-writer (with Graham Gordy), there was no one to tell him that his ludicrous cavorting is little more than an 88-minute “Saturday Night Live” skit. Certainly not first-time director Marco Schnabel.
As in the “Austin Powers” franchise, Myers pads out the proceedings with cameos, including Ben Kingsley as cross-eyed Guru Tugginmypudha, “Mini-Me” Verne Troyer as the hockey coach, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert as a drugged-up announcer and John Oliver of “The Daily Show” as Dick Pants, the guru’s agent.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Love Guru” is an atrocious, inanely tedious 2. Or, as Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”
