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That’s, when you consider he ever actually had his contact. We’ve established in earlier iterations of this column that “grown males performing like gross caricatures of teenage boys” is just not my most well-liked model of comedy, and that model is just about the air Myers breathes. If he had been right here inside this column, he would little doubt make a juvenile crack about who precisely was having his contact, snicker in that beaverlike means of his, after which mug round expectantly ready for the remainder of us to hitch in. I suppose it’s to Myers’s credit score that I’m perpetually one unfunny joke, grating snort, or ugly mug away from making an attempt to punch him by way of my TV display: for a very long time, he was superb at this model of comedy that I hate.
Then he did The Cat within the Hat (2003), an outrageously cynical (and outrageously sexy) adaptation of a beloved guileless kids’s literary traditional, and the world began to have a look at him a bit humorous. And then, after pacifying everybody with a few blockbusting Shrek sequels, he made The Love Guru.
The Love Guru was supposed to duplicate Myers’s earlier successes with Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers. Like these two, Guru Pitka was a personality Mike Myers had developed throughout his stand-up-and-sketch profession. Like these two, Guru Pitka was alleged to be a fond parody of one thing Myers truly liked and revered – on this case, the self-help empire of his “religious advisor” Deepak Chopra. Like these two, Guru Pitka was thought-about a positive wager for a profitable franchise.
In contrast to these two, audiences, when introduced with the idea, didn’t play alongside.
The Love Guru went down laborious on its opening weekend, grossing solely $13 million and opening in 4th place. It ended up bringing in $40 million in opposition to its $62 million funds. Its director, first-timer Mario Schnabel, by no means directed one other function and doesn’t actually have a Wikipedia web page. And Mike Myers by no means bounced again. He by no means wrote one other movie, and his starring roles dried up all through the 2010s. Right now, he has largely retired from performing, although he often and to little fanfare hints at the potential of an Austin Powers 4.
Now, we’ve seen a lot of profession–killers right here at Raspberry Choosing. Generally, for no matter cause, the world simply tires of a director or performer. Generally it actually was time for the artist to go, and generally the loss of life was untimely. Which of those was The Love Guru?
THE STORY
And generally, the loss of life is a mercy killing. If The Love Guru was Mike Myers’s nice new thought again in 2008, higher to disavow him immediately of the notion that he was having nice concepts.
We open the movie within the small Indian city of Harenmahkeesta (get it, hair in my keister) with a voiceover by Morgan Freeman (Morgan Freeman). Wait, it’s truly a voiceover from Guru Maurice Pitka (Myers), who’s talking right into a voice recorder with a Morgan Freeman setting. The film is not going to once more attain these heights of cleverness.
Each time he touches it, I need to take a bathe.
Myers is sporting a wig and beard product of a yak’s pubic hair, a faux schnozz that seems to have been the inspiration for Bradley Cooper’s make-up in Maestro, and an accent that has not emerged from the mouth of a human being earlier than or since. “Canadian inflected with Hank Azaria on potent weed” is the perfect I received. Anyway, Guru Pitka is telling us all about “intimacy, or ‘into-me-I-see,’” and for example his understanding of “intimacy,” he’s going to inform us about Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco), his hardest scholar within the methods of affection.
Then we transition to the opening credit. Mike Myers rides an elephant and commits sexual assault in opposition to Dolly Parton’s “9 to five.”
Now we are able to begin the story correct, and it’ll shortly make us want we might return to the elephant and “9 to five.” A pair of hockey commentators (Jim Gaffigan and Stephen Colbert – there are so many celebrities debasing themselves on this film) inform us how Darren Roanoke was the new new participant for the beleaguered Toronto Maple Leafs till he break up up together with his spouse Prudence (Meagan Good), who’s now courting the LA Kings’ French-Canadian goalie Jacques “Le Coq” (get it, as a result of it means the cock) Grande (Justin Timberlake). As a result of I respect your mind way over Mike Myers does, I’ll merely let you determine why Jacques Grande is nicknamed “Le Coq.”
I consider in you and your powers of deduction.
Anyway, the data that his spouse is getting with Le Coq provides Darren a foul case of the mad-sads, so he’s been thrown off his recreation and the Leafs are trying good to lose the Stanley Cup but once more. That is deeply upsetting to Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba), the proprietor of the Leafs. Her father purchased the staff in 1967, they haven’t gained a Stanley Cup since, and now their followers speak in regards to the “Bullard curse.” So Jane actually wants Darren again on his recreation. And Jane is an enormous fan of the sage knowledge, on all issues of life, of Guru Pitka.
Pitka, within the meantime, is having his personal minor meltdown: he’s bored with being the number-two Neo-Jap-Self-Assist-Spiritualist on this planet and shedding potential wealthy shoppers to primary, Deepak Chopra (Deepak Chopra). With the assistance of his supervisor, Dick Pants (John Oliver, about fifteen years previous) and his assistant Rajneesh (Manu Nayaran), he determines that his drawback is that he’s by no means been on Oprah. However, if he can repair Darren Roanoke’s marriage, he’ll get an interview with Oprah, after which all his issues shall be gone!
We then head right into a flashback to Pitka’s childhood coaching in India, the place he and Chopra had been each college students of Guru Tugginmypuddha (Ben Kingsley) (actually) and oh my HOLY JESUS WHAT IS THAT.
I HAD TO SEE THIS SO NOW YOU DO TOO.
What you see earlier than you is merely the picture of a picture, the faintest shadow of Devil’s buttocks as he wiggles them on the digital camera. I hate this greater than I’ve ever hated something in my life. I hate it greater than something I noticed in Freddy Obtained Fingered or Soiled Love. I hate it greater than the Hatfields hated the McCoys, greater than Bette hated Joan, greater than Don McLean hated Mick Jagger. I hate it greater than I hate American cheese, abdomen viruses, mosquitoes, Florida drivers, or pointless conferences the place an overpaid marketing consultant reads PowerPoint slides in regards to the latest schooling fad for 3 hours. The one factor I hate greater than I hate that is the scene through which Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley pisses right into a vase after which forces his acolytes to play a recreation of “Stink Mop” with it whereas he farts at us.
Tugginmypuddha (get it, as a result of tuggin’ my wait does anybody truly name it that?) asks this horrifying half-man abomination why it needs to be a guru, and Pitka responds that he needs women to love him. So Tugginm…Ben Kingsley forces him to put on a chastity belt formed like an elephant, in order that he’ll be taught to realize satisfaction from inside, fairly than from the affections of others.
The remainder of the film is Pitka attempting to get Darren and Prudence again collectively whereas Myers makes embarrassing jokes about male genitalia and everybody round him pretends to search out them humorous so, uh, I assume let’s begin formally speaking in regards to the unhealthy stuff.
THE BAD
You understand how the (incorrect) defenders of Freddy Obtained Fingered will all the time declare that it’s truly some genius experiment in “anti-comedy,” Tom Inexperienced pulling a prank on an viewers and a studio that was anticipating to snort at fart and intercourse jokes? The Love Guru additionally appears like a film made as a prank, or maybe as a dare, if the dare was “make the film Freddy Obtained Fingered is congratulating itself for not being.”
Right here is the essential development of practically each plot beat in The Love Guru:
- Guru Pitka and one in all his companions (Malco, Oliver, Narayan, or Alba, in ascending order of how a lot they hate themselves for being right here) discover themselves in an ungainly state of affairs – for instance, Pitka has by chance insulted the two’8” Maple Leafs Coach Punch Cherkov (get it, as a result of no I’m not doing it once more).
- In a best-case state of affairs, Pitka says one thing unfunny and gross like “I feel I’m gonna should do a panty test. I may need some monkey-mustard again there.”
- In a worse-case state of affairs, Pitka says one thing that will be horribly offensive if I might muster the vitality to really feel offense, which I can’t, as a result of I’ve spent all my vitality hating Mike Myers for describing his feces as “monkey-mustard.” For instance, trying down at Coach Cherkov and saying, with nice relish, “Condescending! That’s a biiiig phrase for you!”
- In a fair WORSE-case state of affairs, Myers will flip on to the digital camera and clarify a joke he simply informed. For instance, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your gnome. Identify! You’re a midget!”
- Pitka will crack up at his personal joke, whereas his companion or companions silently calculate the dimensions of the Xanax prescription they are going to be needing.
Jessica Alba and Manu Narayan, questioning how laborious it’s to turn into an authorized public accountant.
Critically, everybody – besides Mike Myers, who appears fairly perky and chipper all through this entire sorry train, and Justin Timberlake, who’s finest in present with out competitors – appears like they’re contemplating calling in a bomb menace. Jessica Alba particularly, who is known as upon to do nothing however frown poutily at indignant Toronto followers and smile shmoopily at Myers, appears exhausted and dissociated all through the film.
As for Myers, it’s not sufficient for him to do the horrible factor, he all the time has to level out the horrible factor he’s doing. “I’m making diarrhea noises with my cup,” he’ll announce as he makes diarrhea noises together with his cup. Or, in a much less objectionable however someway extra offensive instance, “I’d like an alligator soup, and make it snappy! As a result of alligators are snappy, and on the similar time, I would like it immediate.” In some unspecified time in the future, I anticipate him to show his silly grin to the digital camera and announce, “I’m making this film as a result of I hate you and need to watch the world burn.” And each time he does this, he emits a selected…snort? The perfect description I’ve for it’s “the sound a canine makes proper earlier than it vomits up a big lizard,” a type of choked guttural wheeze. It’s pretty much as good an indicator as now we have of when the film thinks it’s being humorous. The opposite primary indicator is when Myers forces his costars to snort at his jokes, which I assume he did by attaching electrodes to their groins.
You’ve two seconds, Manu; then we flip up the voltage.
So, so few of those jokes land. Pitka’s use of “Mariska Hargitay” as a mantra is extra puzzling than humorous, and solely turns into extra so when Hargitay herself reveals up in a scene loaded with C-list movie star cameos. Ben Kingsley’s wretched Gandhi parody appears like the results of a misplaced wager. A subplot involving Roanoke’s mommy points takes up a rare period of time and goes nowhere. There’s nothing for me to latch onto. I might really feel a little bit unhealthy about being so imply to this film, as a result of Myers clearly believed in it and thought folks would really like it, however you recognize what, it was imply to me first.
If being repulsive and aggravating weren’t sufficient, the movie can also be lazy. It’s a disgrace that Mario Schnabel’s profession kicked the bucket so laborious and so decisively, however maybe he simply wasn’t meant to direct films, as a result of he merely didn’t know what he was doing. A dialog between Pitka and Roanoke supposedly at Niagara Falls is clearly greenscreened over the identical ten-second loop, and the 2 instantly change from being on the American facet of the Falls to the Canadian facet halfway by way of their heart-to-heart. A scene through which two elephants have intercourse in a hockey rink as a distraction (sure, that occurs) appears ugly and half-finished even by 2008 requirements.
And talking of Freddy Obtained Fingered, it’s additionally the second Raspberry Choosing film that has pressured me to suppose at size in regards to the sexual proclivities of elephants.
This assault rooster that tries to scratch Pitka to loss of life is the true hero of the film.
THE GOOD
The great moments of The Love Guru are few and much between, however they do exist. This gained’t take lengthy:
As a lot as I hate all the pieces he’s doing, I can’t be totally mad at Mike Myers for having a great time with a challenge he’s having fun with. He can, actually, sing, so a few of his Bollywood-styled pop music renditions do sound fairly good. Justin Timberlake, too, is having a heck of a number of enjoyable in a job for which the first demand is that he swagger round pretending to have an impossibly monumental penis. Not a tough job (get it), however not less than he does it effectively.
Stephen Colbert as a drug-addled hockey commentator will get one good joke making enjoyable of sponsored Moments in Sports activities, declaring a Kings participant’s sudden assault on Roanoke “the Altoids ‘Curiously Robust Elbow to the Face’ of the Recreation.” I smiled at that.
Manufacturing designer Charles Wooden gave us one unbelievable set in Coach Cherkov’s workplace:
Movie the entire film in right here. Make them share our ache.
Lastly, the very finish – a Bollywood-style big-group rendition of Steve Miller’s “The Joker” – is truthfully fairly good. Costume designer Karen Patch had already executed superb work on Pitka, dressing him in a mustard-yellow angrakha that matches his sunny, grinning extra all too effectively, and she or he put collectively an ensemble for this last quantity that’s each horny and tasteful, two issues in any other case lacking from The Love Guru.
Jessica Alba, considering her eventual revenge on the world.
The credit additionally comprise a single blooper. A digital camera man says “all I see is asses,” and with out lacking a beat, Verne Troyer says “now you know the way it feels.” I laughed, an actual joyous snort, a treasure extra valuable than diamonds after the longest, most laugh-free 87 minutes of my movie-viewing life. Critically, I feel I smiled extra throughout Grave of the Fireflies.
Look, folks, the purpose of this column is emphatically not to take an enormous previous dump throughout films upon which everybody has already taken an enormous previous dump. I need to like these films! I need to stick up for them! Writing 2500 phrases on the subject of “guess what, this unhealthy film is actual unhealthy” simply feels unsporting.
However generally a film is simply asking for it. The Love Guru and I are mortal enemies now. Feeling this sort of hatred for a film is refreshing, even inspiring. I’m energized like I might by no means be after yawning by way of the two-and-a-half hours of navel-gazing mediocrity that appear to make up so a lot of right this moment’s films. I really feel alive. I really feel able to run out and scream and punch issues. My love for films has grown as a result of I hated this film a lot.
So thanks, Mike Myers. You’ve jogged my memory of the enjoyment of the flicks. Please by no means do it once more.
High quality of Film: 1 / 5. So long as Ghosts Can’t Do It exists, nothing shot with a naked minimal of competence can go decrease than 1.
High quality of Expertise: ½ / 5. 87 minutes of botched dental surgical procedure would have not less than different its ache stage once in a while.
Did the Razzies Get It Proper? Lord, I hope so, however my goodness what a wretched record of movies. Of the Worst Image nominees that yr, I’ve seen The Taking place, which is fun-bad; Catastrophe Film, which is bad-bad however not as unhealthy as The Love Guru; and Within the Identify of the King, which is goofy and honest however largely an enormous ol’ snooze. I’ve not seen The Hottie and the Nottie and don’t plan to alter this within the close to or distant future.
You may learn Tim’s evaluation of The Love Guru right here!
Wish to decide extra Raspberries? Try the remainder of the columns on this sequence!
Mandy Albert teaches highschool English and watches films – largely unhealthy, often good – within the psychedelic swamplands of South Florida. She is particularly keen on Nineteen Seventies horror and high-sincerity, low-talent vainness tasks. You may hearken to her and her husband speak about Star Trek: Enterprise on their podcast At Least There’s a Canine! You can even observe Mandy on Letterboxd.
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