Love Guru

It was a slow Friday in the office, so we all decided to duck out early to start the weekend. I decided to go see the The Love Guru at the cheap theater. It was either that or You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and I'm kind of Adam Sandlered out.

Directed by Marco Schnabel, the film is co-written by Mike Myers. Myers also stars as the Guru Pitka, who was raised with Deepak Chopra in the same ashram. The Guru Pitka feels he's in Chopra's shadow and longs to be the world's most well known Guru, although he is known as the Love Guru. He has an ever present (and quite attractive) assistant named Rajneesh (Manu Narayan) and a business manager named Dick Pants (the Daily Show's John Oliver).


The story begins when beleaguered Maple Leafs hockey team owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) hires Guru Pitka to reunite her star hockey player, Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) with his estranged wife, Prudence (Meagan Good). Prudence left Darren for one of his rivals, french Canadian goalie, Jaques "le Coq" Grande (Justin Timberlake), and Darren has since lost his game.


I've seen this touted as "Mike Myers' first original character since Austin Powers". I believe this was meant to be another hit like Austin Powers with the possibility of sequels to follow, however, I think Myers has been off the radar too long. Also, the juvenile and bathroom gross out humour just didn't hit with me. There were a lot of funny parts, lots of cameos and lots of great talent in this, but on the whole, it didn't come together. I did get more into it halfway into the film, but there were too many things going on to keep me there the entire time. Overall disappointing given how much great comedic talent was in this.

More ramblings to come......