The appealing thing about Mike Myers and the comedy he writes is that it's basically good-natured -- dumb but good-natured. Think about Wayne Campbell or Austin Powers. They are goofy likable characters that never display any real mean-spiritedness. Even if they do lash out at someone, it's usually more silly than vicious. Myers' work falls into the pot comedy genre where even bad guys don't come across as that bad, and there's a loopy surreal quality to the comic world created. The Love Guru fits neatly into this category with Myers' latest creation, the Guru Pitka, being a goofy American-born, Indian-raised self-help author asked to help turn around the fortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Their star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) has been shaken to the core by the recent break up with his wife and by the fact that she has rebounded with the goalie (played with an over the top French Canadian accent by Justin Timberlake) from the opposite team. The Guru Pitka has been called in to bring the couple back together in time for Roanoke to lead the Leafs to a Stanley Cup victory.
A fantasy comes true in The Love Guru (Paramount)
I have to admit that there's something appealing about the fact that real life Leafs fanatic Mike Myers has constructed an entire film just so that he could see his beloved team win an elusive Stanley Cup. Now that's true fan love. In an NHL post Myers even confessed, "Well my whole life is a thinly veiled cover to hang with my favorite hockey players." He went on to say, "the Maple Leafs haven't won a Cup since 1967, and I thought the only way I'll probably see a Stanley Cup in my lifetime is if I write it. So I decided to write it in the hopes that this sympathetic magic, that by writing it, it becomes so." Myers even makes a cameo playing himself, a devoted Maple Leafs fan. &
It's also interesting that Myers seems to have made the film into a kind of NHL PSA to help expand the popularity of his favorite sport by showing kids in urban cities playing hockey and by featuring a black hockey player as the team's star. For whatever reasons, hockey still remains one of the whitest sports (and I'm not referring to the ice), so to feature a black hockey star definitely comes across as trying to broaden the sports' appeal. (Useless piece of trivia: black hockey player and former NHL star Anson Carter hails from Myers' hometown of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada - maybe that along with the fact that the Leafs had two black players on their roster last year played into Myers' casting for The Love Guru .) Okay, forgive the hockey diversion but I do live with a hockey player, and Myers' love of the sport was just too obvious to ignore.
Ben Kingsley before being digitally cross-eyed in The Love Guru (Paramount)
Back to the film...
What works in The Love Guru is Myers' silly performance, the spoofing of the whole self-help craze, Ben Kingsley's ridiculously cross-eyed guru, Bollywood references, and some fun word play. Seeing Kingsley, who won an Oscar for his dignified portrayal as Gandhi, stoop to such low comedy was both embarrassing and funny. If you want to see him in a more classical performance, he shines in the upcoming The Wackness . As a fan of Bollywood film, I also have to admit that I enjoyed Myers' little Bollywood spoof, which revealed that he or someone in the creative department must have actually watched a few Bollywood films in order to capture the over-the-top style of those musical numbers. Myers also serves up energeti, Indian-style renditions of the songs 9 to 5 and The Joker.
Jessica Alba's a dimpled dud but the Bollywood spoof works in The Love Guru (Paramount)
What doesn't work is the relentless onslaught of potty humor/gross out gags, Jessica Alba, and the film's length. Once again Alba reveals that she's an & adorable dimpled physical presence but she can't act. I just wonder how long her cute girl-next-door sex appeal will keep her a star. And Myers' juvenile comedy can be funny for a bit but not to the extent we get here. Myers is like a little kid who gets thrives on the attention adults give him whenever he farts or makes a poop joke. But Myers is 45 now and maybe he could move beyond this.
The Love Guru (PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language, some comic violence and drug references) is an unabashedly silly and at times even stupid comedy. But the film was just too good-natured to incur my wrath even though it continually aimed low. But Myers is more successful in creating the character of Guru Pitka than in creating a film to showcase him. If you like Myers or if you can't wait any longer to see the Maple Leafs break their 40-year curse to win a Stanley Cup, then go give The Love Guru some love. Otherwise, you can skip the film or wait for the DVD.
Companion viewing: Mystery Alaska, Wayne's World, Austin Powers, Miracle
