"The Love Guru" Review - Written by TonyD

“The Love Guru”
2008
BOMB out of ****
Director: Marco Schnabel
Cast: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake


Remember that TV show “Cavemen,” with those goddamn cavemen from the Geico commercials? Remember how tasteless and how unfunny that show was? I do. I remember watching that show once and only once. But I can tell you this – if I had a choice between watching eight episodes of “Cavemen” and “The Love Guru” once, I would probably choose eight episodes of “Cavemen.”

“The Love Guru,” a lot like “Cavemen,” is unfunny, tasteless, and completely offensive. The comedy is bland and the laughs were silent. None of the actors added to the comedy and all of the jokes fall flat on their faces. “The Love Guru” is probably one of the worst movies that I will witness this year, and I’ve seen A LOT of bad ones.

Pitka (Mike Myers) is an American-born boy who was raised with a ton of gurus. When he eventually becomes a guru himself, he decides that he wants to be the new Deepak Chopra and be featured on Oprah’s TV show. I never noticed how many celebrities actually worship some gurus – Jessica Simpson, Val Kilmer, and even Mariska Hargitay. (Who the fuck is Mariska Hargitay?)

Anyway, Guru Pitka has to wear a chastity belt, which means that he can’t sleep with any woman until he finds the true reason of being a guru. He has a five step program called DRAMA, and he can develop acronyms from GURU and can turn the word “intimacy” into the words “into me I see.” His first step of gaining fame is helping a hockey player from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

All-Star Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) recently was left by his fiancée (Meagan Good) for the Sacramento Kings goalie Jacques Grande. (Justin Timberlake) Since the two teams are playing in the playoffs, the Leafs owner (Jessica Alba) calls in Pitka to try and bring Roanoke and his ex together so he can pull himself together to win the Stanley Cup.

Does anyone else find it the LEAST bit funny that Jessica Alba owns a hockey team? Just typing up that premise made me laugh harder than I did in the movie.

“The Love Guru” is offensive and tasteless in its own way. I’ve seen tons of movies try to do what “The Love Guru” does and it always ends the same way – bad. There is a scene in “The Love Guru” where Mike Myers offends a few Canadians in a bar by calling them poor, which not only did I find kind of offensive in a Canadian point of view, but in my point of view as well. And I won’t even begin to explain how offensive the scene with Verne Troyer was.

I know people have been killing to see Mike Myers do an original character. The last live-action film he did was “Cat in the Hat” and we all know how that was. I really do miss the days when “Austin Powers” came out, because that character was actually pretty damn funny. But his character of Guru Pitka wasn’t even half of the genius that “Austin Powers” was. In a way, you have to feel bad for Mike Myers. Some people need the money and they are willing to do anything for it.

Or maybe after insulting those guys in the bar, maybe he doesn’t deserve the money.

I can’t bitch about Justin Timberlake. It’s too bad that he was only in the film for ten minutes even though he had such a big role in the film, because I actually found his accent to be pretty amusing. I miss the days when he played in quality films like “Alpha Dog,” “Black Snake Moan,” and I’ll throw “Southland Tales” in there too. If there was just a little bit more of him, the film might have been funny. Or just a tiny bit, maybe.

But even as unfunny as Mike Myers is, how unrealistic it is that Jessica Alba owns a hockey team, and how the filmmakers gave the best part of the movie the least amount of screen-time, nothing made me any madder than all of the hockey inaccuracies. Holy fucking shits, nothing made me madder than all of the hockey inaccuracies.

Now if you really know me, I’ve grown up with hockey ALL of my life. I used to play, my brothers still play, and the only sport that I actually pay attention to is… well… hockey. So tell me WHY the only thing I really hoped that I would like about the movie fails me in the long run? If you are a hockey fan, tell me that you didn’t spot the high-sticking goals? Did the audience ever notice how the referee calls the suspension on the ice?

It’s one thing if you are a bad movie, but it is another thing if you can’t even get the rules of hockey right.

I think that even those Geico cavemen could figure THAT out.