Sunday, August 2, 2009

Love Hurts, Love Stinks

Another disk off the L.A. Pubic* Library’s shelves.

The Love Guru (2008)

You don’t know how many times I passed this one up when perusing the LAPL’s DVDs. Perhaps I finally succumbed to morbid curiosity, or maybe I just had a major brain fart, but I watched Mike Myer’s last opus. Well curiosity shit all over this cat.

My goodness but this was a very unfunny movie. I may have laughed once out of pity. Myers – co-writer and star of this dreck – plays a Caucasian, but Indian-raised, self-help guru named Pitka. He has amassed a following and much wealth with ashrams in several countries, but he always comes in number two behind Deepak Chopra. It turns out Pitka and Chopra were both raised by the same Indian guru, played by Oscar winner Ben Kingsley, who is named Tugginmypuddha. Read that name again. This move is FILLED with knee slappers like that: Coach Punch Cherkov, Richard “Dick” Pants, Jacques “Le Coq” Grande, and Guru Sathabigknoba.

Beyond the wacky names, the script is littered with dick/penis/weiner/c--k jokes (well, as much as they could do with the PG-13 confines) – enough to cover the world’s largest landfill. Myers, who is capable of near-brilliant work, really thought this was funny?

Myers restrains himself to playing Pitka, albeit even at as a boy and teen by superimposing his head on other actors, and cameoing as Mike Myers, so he doesn't have the distraction of playing multiple characters. In a Mike Myers comedy usually several of the supporting characters are funny and memorable. Here he isn’t even surrounded by his usual cohorts like Will Ferrell (I’m not counting the annoying and disposable Verne Troyer). That leaves Myers’ constant, uninspired, mugging front and center. Oh, joy.

The satire of the self help movement wasn’t very smart or inspired, merely silly, with trademarked acronyms for nearly everything, including "bible." I don’t think satire is Myers’ strong suit. And by having appearances by the real Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey in this beyond lame movie, it just shows what media whores they really are.

I believe this movie would really make 10 year old boys laugh. Wring it out and it’s just a bunch of dick jokes. However, Jessica Alba is always easy on the eyes, especially in the all-too-brief Bollywood dance numbers.

* You’ll understand this reference after reading the review.

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