Cinepub

I’m not a big fan of self-help gurus, a bunch of people who, it seems to me, manage to convince people that the path to true happiness involves buying all of their books and other assorted products. So I thought I might get something out of Mike Myer’s film “The Love Guru” especially considering that one of the first jokes features his character Guru Pitka holding up one of his books entitled “If you’re happy and you know it, think again.” Excellent, I thought. This might turn out to be a fine satire on the whole self-help guru phenomena. Sadly I was wrong. What could have been a quite promising concept quickly descends into a string of sex jokes clearly left over from the Austin Powers movies.

That’s really the problem. If you’ve seen the first two minutes of this film, you’ve pretty much seen all you need to see of Mike Myers’ performance in The Love Guru and probably most of his good lines within the film. These first two minutes actually made me laugh a little but it all turned out to be a deception. It’s exactly the same formula as in the aforementioned Austin Powers series but somehow they managed to sustain themselves throughout three films, although they were becoming kinda stale by the third and were probably saved by the inclusion of Goldmember and Michael Caine as Austin’s father.

Unfortunately The Love Guru probably suffers from following those films but Myers really has no one to blame but himself. Of course people are going to compare this to Austin Powers, it’s filled with exactly the same jokes except this time it’s the fourth time round and there are no familiar characters to draw us in from the beginning. Speaking of reusing jokes from old films, there was one point in this film that really, really pissed me off. Pitka is sitting in a car with a hockey player whose relationship he’s trying to fix. The hockey player is bobbing his head along to some rap music when Pitka changes the radio station and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ begins to play. Myers mugs to the camera before quickly changing the station. It’s almost as though he knew this film would be shit and was reminding everyone that he was in ‘Wayne’s World’ and at least that was awesome. Well, yes, yes it was awesome but it certainly doesn’t need to be associated with this cinematic abortion.

So what kind of jokes can you expect from the Love Guru? Well, there’s Pitka getting hit in the mouth with a piss-soaked mop, Pitka gets a broken pool cue shoved up his ass which he proceeds to sniff and merriment ensues, Pitka’s Indian house boy prepares a meal called nuts in a sling which consists of two nuts wrapped in dough causing them to resemble a scrote and the whole film pretty much culminates with two elephants fucking, a clumsy yet puerile sight which seems an apt metaphor for this film. Oh and lets not forget the hilarious running jokes like the hilarious Indian names such as Tugginmypudha, Cheddafrumunda and Hathasmalvena and increasingly poor book titles.

What of the rest of the cast? Well there’s the woefully underused John Oliver as the Guru’s agent named >sigh< Dick Pants. Seriously, John Oliver is a damn funny, funny man. I listen to his and Andy Zaltzman’s pod cast, the Bugle every week and it’s hilarious not to mention the fact that he’s one of the funniest correspondents the Daily Show has ever had. Speaking of the Daily Show, the film is somewhat saved by the inclusion of Daily Show alumni and star in his own right, Stephen Colbert playing a recovering drug addict hockey commentator. Even the aforementioned elephant fucking scene is saved somewhat by Colbert’s casual commentary on the incident not to mention a rather funny line early on in the film regarding an attack on Dame Judi Dench. Yes, Colbert may be the only person to walk away from this film unscathed.

The film also stars Jessica Alba who doesn’t leave much of an impression, Mini-Me, who annoys me so much at this point that I refuse to remember his real name or look it up, is there to provide midget based humour. Ben Kingsley appears as the cross-eyed, pissing and farting Guru Tugginmypuddha… Really, Ben? First Uwe Boll and now this… what happened to you, man? You used to be cool. Then there’s Justin Timberlake who, much like Matthew Lillard in Dungeon Siege, I can’t really be mad at because he takes his character the French-Canadian, Celine Dion loving Jaque ‘Le Coq’ Grande to such an over the top extreme that he just kind of amuses you. Good for him.

There’s also plenty of cameos such as Jessica Simpson, Val Kilmer, real life guru Deepak Chopra, Morgan Freeman’s voice, Kanye West and Mike Myers. Yes, Myers actually had a cameo in his own film as himself. I can understand why some people called this film ‘utterly self serving’ though in the end it probably won’t do much to serve Myer’s career. Maybe he’ll do some more serious work. I honestly believe that there’s probably still time to change direction for him to avoid the unfunny path that Eddie Murphy has decided to take. Poor Eddie Murphy’s career. It will be missed.

There is one thing I will give Myers credit for, he does seem to have a knack for amusing musical numbers and in The Love Guru we are treated to sitar based versions of Dolly Parton’s ‘9 to 5’ and The Steve Miller Band’s ‘The Joker’. Maybe it’s just me because I certainly like the sound of the sitar and The Joker is one of my favourite songs of all time, but I certainly found these scenes watchable. And it’s because of these scenes, Stephen Colbert and Justin Timberlake that I give The Love Guru one and a half pint out of five.

Anyway, I feel I’ve certainly written far more that this film deserves so lets get onto the Razzie worst picture nomination round up. Did The Love Guru deserve to take home the award? Well, I can see that maybe people had higher expectations of this and were sorely disappointed when they finally saw it, especially considering the cast but honestly, I think you can guess which film I think should have won this prize. Yes, no surprises but I honestly think Disaster Movie should have had this one wrapped up. The only reason I can think as to why it didn’t win is that maybe the comitee deciding the result came to the conclusion that it really wasn’t a film merely a collection of things that happened which someone accidentally filmed and distributed.

So that is that then. I can finally go back to watching good films. Next category is Best Actor which has only two films that I haven’t already reviewed. Great. Guess I’ll be back to shit films before I know it. Huzzah.