The Love Guru

Cast of Characters:
Guru Pitka – Mike Myers
Jane Bullard – Jessica Alba
Jacques “Le Coq” Grande – Justin Timberlake
Darren Roanoke – Romany Malco
Prudence Roanoke – Meagan Good
Coach Punch Cherkov – Verne Troyer
Guru Tugginmypudha – Ben Kingsley

Director – Marco Schnabel
Writer – Mike Myers & Graham Gordy
Producer – Michael De Luca & Mike Myers
Distributor – Parmount Pictures
Running Time – 87 minutes
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language, some comic violence and drug references.

Maurice Pitka (Mike Myers) is an American boy who’s raised in an Indian ashram along with his friend Deepak Chopra. Together, they are taught by the cross-eyed Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley).

Some of you might have trouble figuring out all these extremely vague puns, so let me help you out. His name is tugging my pudha. He’s referring to his dick. His dick that he tugs on… ’cause his name is Tugginmypudha. Get it? Hooray for weiner jokes.

If you can believe it, it gets worse. Worse as in Guru Pecker Yanker fighting with piss-soaked mops.

Starring Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley.

His character is cross-eyed ’cause he jerks off non-stop… You know… tuggin’ his pudha… aka his penis.

…

Seriously, what other projects did he turn down to star in this?

That must’ve been one bitchin’ paycheck, Sir Ben.

Now grown up, Gurus Pitka and Chopra come to America, where Chopra becomes a major celebrity and Pitka is relegated to being just the number-two guru in the world. That is until Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), the beautiful new owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, asks for his help in reconciling her star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) with his wife Prudence (Meagan Good). See, Mrs. Roanoke’s left her hubby high-and-dry for Los Angeles Kings stud Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake).

And again, to clear up any confusion, he’s nicknamed that because his dick is huge and it hits the ground with a sledgehammer like thud. The effort put into this script is second to none.

To think I’ve been wasting so much time on comedies written by two-bit hacks like Billy Wilder, Mel Brooks, Harold Ramis, John Hughes or Edgar Wright. What a bunch of fucking losers.

Darren and Prudence’s split couldn’t have come at a worse time with the Stanley Cup Playoffs beginning. But so help him Shiva, Guru Pitka will muster all of his strength to reunite these two lovebirds.

Because true love is worth fighting for… but not nearly as much as the massive boner he’s got for Jane.

That’s why there’s a loud dinging sound in his pants. See, any time Jane flirts, or says something cute, or merely looks in his fucking direction, his dick gets hard. Do you get it? Does that make sense? Again, just trying to do my part in deciphering all the low-key subtext going on here.

If you’re wondering why it feels like you don’t see Mike Myers in as many high-profile movies as you used to, you can blame The Love Guru.

By 2008, Myers had three successful film franchises under his belt: Wayne’s World, Austin Powers and Shrek. Wayne’s World made him a star. Austin Powers made him box office gold. And Shrek broadened his appeal to families. The Love Guru, on the other hand, brought his career not just to a halt, but by way of a head-on collision into a brick wall at full, low-brow, gutter-humored speed.

I thought there would never come a day where I’d see something so grossly infantile it makes Happy Madison look like Wes Anderson, but as Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, “Uh – well… uh – uh – w-well… there it is.”

Reportedly, Myers came up with The Love Guru as a way to handle his grief following his father’s death, which led to him developing a close friendship with Deepak Chopra. Obviously, I’m not here to disparage or make light of his father’s death, and in fairness, that processing of grief also led to the creation of Austin Powers, which turned out pretty good. That said, one day I may have a son of my own, and if following my death that little shit head chooses to remember me through a series of lazy dick jokes I’d expect to see scribbled in some idiot junior higher’s trapper keeper, I’m poltergeisting the shit out of his home.

Myers also workshopped the character a few years before the film’s release, appearing as Guru Pitka at various promo events and comedy clubs. Of course, knowing Hollywood’s penchant to brown nose each other so deep they can practically taste what they had for dinner last month, they all loved it and just laughed and laughed and ate it up. And, honestly, of all the unforgivably disgusting things Hollywood has been guilty of enabling, that there stands as the most evil.

Somewhere out there, Roman Polanski’s thinking, “Shit… at least all I did was just drug and rape a girl.”

Myers is fully capable of producing jokes that are smart, witty and hysterically absurd (e.g., the product placement bit in Wayne’s World), but the shit he’s trying to pass off as jokes here is beyond sad, dragging lowest common denominator to all new pathetic lows I never believed were even possible to reach until now. I’m convinced not a single draft of any script was made throughout the making of The Love Guru, but if by chance one was, it was most likely etched out in crayon. My guess is Myers sought inspiration through all that nasty graffiti etched across the slimy stalls of a truck stop restroom. That would explain why every gag in this piece of shit is either a dick or poop joke.

I’m honestly surprised “Chad the fag sucks dick” or “888-454-2670… She-male, eats ass on first date” didn’t make the cut.

What did, though, was two humping elephants, so there’s that. You just gotta have two humping elephants, especially when they’re the cleverest gag in this film. Well, isn’t that just sad.

C’mon, you didn’t actually think it was Timberlake’s floor-thumping dick bit, did you?

Get it? Hey, guys, you get it?! His name is “Le Coq” Grande, ’cause his dick is huuuuuuuuge. GET IT?!?! It’s spelled all French like ’cause that makes dick sound all classy and stuff. You might ask why I’m repeating a tired dick joke I already made about Timberlake’s character earlier in this review… Okay, now you’re getting it. Now just stretch that tired and excruciatingly unfunny formula for an entire ninety minutes of your precious life, and – well… voila!

Oh, and if you think “Le Coq” is bad, John Oliver’s character is – no joke – named Dick Pants… Yep… just Dick Pants. See, they’re legit not even trying there.

Worse, it’s not enough that Myers has to insult your taste, he also insists on insulting your intelligence. ‘Cause it’s obvious, you all are too fucking stupid to figure out what a dick joke is, but never fear, ’cause Stephen Colbert pops up to provide interpretive drawings of all those complex genitalia references your retarded lizard brain just can’t compute. Hey! Look at that! It’s a dick and balls!! Now I get it!!

This movie was written by grown men… I’m assuming.

Knowing that scatological humor – okay, no. Nope. No way. A movie this stupid hasn’t earned the right to have big words used in its review. Knowing that poopies, boobies and pee-pee places can only take a movie so far, Myers and director Marco Schnabel stretch and stretch and pad the hell out of this movie by cramming in not one, not two, but three full-length musical numbers. You know, ’cause what the world’s been missing all this time were sitar versions of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5”, Steve Miller’s “The Joker” and Extreme’s “More Than Words”. But even with all that additional padding, this film still somehow clocks in at only eighty-seven minutes.

Then why does it feel like four hours? Well, ’cause it sucks.

I mean, “More Than Words” is already insufferable enough in its original form. Did we really need a sitar-infused remix that’s somehow even worse?

If you hear a terrifyingly loud, thunderous roar while watching this movie, it’s the sound of George Harrison and Ravi Shankar shrieking in horror from beyond the grave.

This is all quite surprising coming from a man who took a five minute sketch show skit and helped spawn it off into two great comedies, an extremely difficult feat knowing the track record of not just comedy sequels, but SNL’s horrendous track record of translating their skits into movies. Other than The Blues Brothers and both Wayne’s World films, I can’t think of a single other SNL property that was adapted into a borderline tolerable film, much less a good one and you can forget about great. Out of those three standouts, Myers is responsible for two, which is what makes this rom-com dumpster fire all the more disappointing. He’s better than this trash. Way better.

Even more surprising, and the most damning of all the film’s many, many, many, many, fucking-A righty-O maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany errs, is just how unlikable Guru Pitka is from beginning to end. Maybe he’s so degradingly bad here ’cause he wanted Justin Timberlake and eye candy Jessica Alba to look good? Give him credit, that takes a lot of effort to pull off here ’cause Timberlake is playing a literal walking-talking dick joke and Alba has yet to receive a shitty film offer she doesn’t like. But whether that’s the reason or not, it’s quite disheartening to see Myers playing a character that unintentionally winds up being a detestably obnoxious asshat, especially when he’s made a career out of being everything this meditating dickbag isn’t. Wayne Campbell is such a likable everyman. Austin Powers is highly charming in his own cheerfully odd way. And Shrek is one of the most endearing animated characters of the past twenty-five years. Guru Pitka, however, is neither likable, charming or endearing, but he blurts out penis references like it’s a Tourette’s tick, so he’s got that going for him at least, ladies.

Seriously, poor Alba. I swear she looks so uncomfortable in this movie, I’m not sure if what I’m watching is a performance or someone being held hostage. If you pay close attention to her scenes with Myers, in between all her feigned laughs at his onslaught of toilet humor and dick jokes, you might be able to catch her blinking twice for help. When you have to subject yourself to taking a role in that shitty Little Fockers movie just to wipe this film’s rank-ass stench of failure off you, that should be quite a sobering wake up call to how low you’ve sunk. I ain’t superstitious, but I’m far more inclined to believe her filmography is legit cursed than her character’s love life. That’s right. While Guru Pitka is committing at least five hundred HR violations trying to suss out Jane Bullard’s relationship status, it’s revealed that poor Miss Bullard is unable able to get a date ’cause the Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup in four decades. I’ve seen some audacious claims made by shitty films before, but few of them top Jessica fucking Alba not being able to get a date.

There’s suspension of disbelief… and then there’s just straight-up bull shit.

You’ll always have Sin City, though, Jessica. Be still, my beating heart, Nancy Callahan.

Also, what makes absolutely no sense is how everyone acts like Pitka is this amazing genius, yet he never once gives off any impression that he is. Maybe if that fact was handled with a touch of irony, it could possibly be forgiven, but that’s not the case here. God forbid this film show even the slightest bit of satirical prodding, much like Austin Powers was a parody of the James Bond franchise (’cause obviously self-help seminars aren’t ripe for satire in any way). No, he’s simply a fucking moron whose self-help teachings boil down to sexually obvious acronyms, constantly sexually harassing Miss Bullard and an unfunny Mariska Hargitay reference. Here it’s used as a “Namaste” greeting that is so beaten to death throughout the movie that by the time the film reaches an anticlimactic cameo appearance by the actual Mariska Hargitay, the punchline it’s going for fails to land.

‘Cause you just don’t give a shit when it happens, especially when the punchline occurs only fifteen minutes into the film. Soooooooo whyyyyyyyy are you still continuing to beat that fucking dead horse into a bloodied, pulpy mess LONG AFTER YOU’VE MADE YOUR SHITTY POINT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

You know what, fuck it. I’m done. I just spent well over ten paragraphs discussing a film that was probably pitched to the studio with nothing more than just a half-assed pencil drawing of a jizz-spurting dick. Can we just cue the humping elephants already?

Judgment: The Love Guru subjects all its movie-going victims with humor that depends solely on juvenile dick jokes, more dick jokes, even more dick jokes, dick jokes on top of those dick jokes, dick jokes playing tummy-sticks with other dick jokes, two humping elephants and the normally charming Mike Myers playing one of the most gratingly unlikable dickheads in not just the year, nor the decade, nor the generation, but the entire history of film. There’s bad comedies and then there’s depressing comedies. This career-killer kicks it down a couple more notches, down into the horrifying pits of hellish comedies like It’s Pat, Freddie Got Fingered, Norbit and anything by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer that are flat-out evil.

God help me, this movie is not only an insult to intelligence, it’s an insult to idiocy.

Sentence: Saddle up and bend over, pal… hope you’re fond of elephants.