| The Love Guru | |
|---|---|
 American theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Marco Schnabel |
| Written by | Mike Myers Graham Gordy |
| Produced by | Michael De Luca Mike Myers |
| Starring | Mike Myers Jessica Alba Justin Timberlake Romany Malco Meagan Good Omid Djalili Ben Kingsley John Oliver |
| Cinematography | Peter Deming |
| Edited by | Billy Weber Lee Haxall |
| Music by | George S. Clinton |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 87 minutes |
| Countries | |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $62 million[2] |
| Box office | $40.9 million[2] |
The Love Guru is a 2008romantic comedy film directed by Marco Schnabel in his directorial debut. It was written and produced byMike Myers, who was the leading cast-member along withJessica Alba,Justin Timberlake,Romany Malco,Meagan Good,Verne Troyer,John Oliver,Omid Djalili, andBen Kingsley. The film follows Pitka (Myers), aguru who is tasked with revitalizing theToronto Maple Leafs hockey team.
Myers came up with the concept of a Guru character in the late 1990s. The aforementioned character was initially planned to appear in theAustin Powers franchise, but was left unimplemented. The film came from Myers' desire to make a hockey movie, expressing wish fulfillment in the film's plot. Filming commenced inToronto, Canada in August 2007. Before release, the film's portrayal ofHinduism received divided responses fromHindu audiences, who remained cautious at the film's handling of cultural themes.Paramount Pictures, the film's main distributor, eventually enabled pre-screenings for select representatives of theHindu American Foundation (HAF), who concluded that the film was not problematic.
The Love Guru was released in theUnited States on June 20, 2008, by Paramount, with theUnited Kingdom andGermany getting releases later that year in August and October respectively, albeit with a differentdistribution partner for the latter. It was panned by critics and audiences who criticized its humor,screenplay, and Schnabel's direction, often being considered a low-point in Myers' career andone of the worst films ever made. It was abox-office failure, grossing $40 million on a budget of $62 million. At the29th Golden Raspberry Awards, the film won three of its seven nominations, includingWorst Picture.
Guru Pitka is the self proclaimed "number-twoguru in the world", afterDeepak Chopra. A flashback shows Pitka was an orphan, taught by Guru Tugginmypudha. When the twelve-year-old Pitka announces he wants to become a guru so that girls will love him, Tugginmypudha puts a chastity belt on him until he can learn that loving himself is more important than being loved by others.
Pitka's dream is to become the number-one guru and appear onThe Oprah Winfrey Show. He lives a charmed life with thousands of followers, including celebritiesJessica Simpson,Val Kilmer andMariska Hargitay (whose name is used as a faux-Hindi greeting). Pitka's teachings, which involve simplistic acronyms and plays on words, are displayed inPowerPointslide shows.
In Canada, Jane Bullard inherits theToronto Maple Leafs hockey team, who are on a losing streak. Their star player, Darren Roanoke, has been playing badly ever since his wife Prudence left him forLos Angeles Kings goaltender Jacques "Lè Coq" Grandé. Jane is a big fan of Pitka's and offers him $2 million to fix Darren's marriage so the team can win theStanley Cup. Pitka's agent tells him if he succeeds,Oprah will have him on her show. Pitka also meets team coach Cherkov, and mocks hisdwarfism.
Pitka and Jane bond on the plane ride. Jane became a fan of Pitka's work due to the death of her father and admits she has a crush on Pitka. When Jane says she had a gay experience in college, Pitka gets an erection, causing his chastity belt to clank.
During a game, Pitka encourages the rival team to beat up Darren to distract him. Darren begins to play well, but then gets suspended for the next two games after beating up Lè Coq and hitting Coach Cherkov with a hockey puck.
Pitka has dinner with Jane and almost kisses her but his chastity belt clanks again. She leaves feeling rejected. In revenge for Pitka's antics, Coach Cherkov punches Pitka in thetesticles. Pitka throws a tantrum over the pain to his testicles as they are overly sensitive due to 33 years ofblue balls.
Dick Pants warns Pitka to hurry up the process or he will lose his spot onOprah to Deepak Chopra again. Pitka is adamant that Darren is not ready, but puts Darren and his wife together regardless. This reconciliation fails. Pitka then drives himself and Darren to Niagara Falls and helps Darren realize that since his mother only showed him love when he succeeded he had grown to believe Prudence would only love him if he won.
With time running out, Pitka distracts Lè Coq with his idol,Celine Dion, and lies to Prudence that Darren stood up to his mom, encouraging her to return to her husband. During the final game, Lè Coq, having heard that Darren cannot play with his mother watching, gets her to sing the national anthem, causing Darren to flee. At the airport on his way to guest onOprah, Pitka sees the news on television and goes back to help Darren. Pitka reveals his chastity belt to Jane, explaining why he pulled away from her. Jane says she understands.
After standing up to his mother, Darren recovers until Lè Coq brags that Prudence prefers him in bed. Darren freezes, and Pitka realizes he needs another distraction, which he provides by getting two elephants to have sex in the middle of the rink. Darren wakes from his stupor and scores the winning goal. After the game, Coach Cherkov apologizes for thegroin attack, Pitka offers a hug but as Cherkov obliges he punches him in the face and threatens to beat him up if he ever attacks him again. They then make up and become friends. He then meets Deepak Chopra and decides that he is fine with being the first Guru Pitka instead of the next Deepak Chopra.
Back in India, Tugginmypudha tells Pitka that he has finally learned to love himself and removes Pitka's chastity belt, revealing there was just a hook in the back. The film ends with Jane and Pitka dancing together in aBollywood-style number to a rendition of "The Joker".
The original score for the film was composed byGeorge S. Clinton, who also composed the score for theAustin Powers films, also starring, written and produced by Mike Myers. Clinton recorded it with an eighty-piece ensemble of theHollywood Studio Symphony atWarner Bros.[3]
The song "Dhadak Dhadak" from the Bollywood film of 2005,Bunty Aur Babli, was used in the trailer.
The songs "9 to 5", "More Than Words", and "The Joker" are all in the film (performed by Myers and withsitar accompaniment) and on the soundtrack. "Brimful of Asha" was also used in the film.
Mike Myers first came up with the idea for Guru Pitka in the mid-1990s.[4][5] The character was originally planned for theAustin Powers franchise.[6] Myers began workshopping the character in New York comedy clubs in 2005.[7] He billed these live shows as "An Evening With His Holiness the Guru Pitka".[8] Myers said, "about a third of the audience were friends of mine who would come. A third of the audience would be people that had heard that I was doing it. And a third would be people thinking they were coming to see an actual guru. I did that for a year and I videotaped them and it informed me."[9] Myers wore a prosthetic nose for the character both in the live performances and in the film.[10][11][12]
The Love Guru was in part inspired by Myers' career-long desire to make a hockey movie.[13][14] A fan of theToronto Maple Leafs, Myers described the film's plot as wish fulfillment, saying, "I figure the only way that my team will win a Cup is if I write it."[15]
First time director Marco Schnabel had previously worked with Myers as asecond unit director on theAustin Powers series, most notablyAustin Powers in Goldmember.[16][17]The Love Guru filmed in Toronto in August 2007.[16][18] It was intended to start a franchise.[7][19]
John Oliver made his feature film debut inThe Love Guru and was cast due to Myers enjoyingThe Daily Show.[20][21][22]Samantha Bee filmed a cameo but only makes a silent appearance in the final cut of the film. Dialogue for her character is included in a bonus feature of deleted scenes contained on the film's home media release.[23]
Myers appeared in the seventh season finale ofAmerican Idol as Pitka, the "spiritual director" of that show. The finalistsDavid Cook andDavid Archuleta got to visit theParamount Pictures studio theatre to seeThe Love Guru a month prior to its release and then got to meet Myers dressed like Pitka and playing "Sitar Hero".
A "Fan Resource Page" atFox Entertainment's beliefnet.com website[24] was "created as part of a collaboration betweenBeliefnet and Paramount Pictures."[25]
The film did poorly at the box office. In its opening weekend,The Love Guru grossed $13.9 million in 3,012 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office behindGet Smart,The Incredible Hulk, andKung Fu Panda,[2] falling short of the $20 million range forecast by Hollywood pundits.[26] The film grossed $32.2 million in the United States and Canada and an additional $8.7 million overseas, for a total of $40.8 million worldwide, against its $62 million budget.[2] When the film was released in theUnited Kingdom, it ranked only #8 on the opening weekend.[27]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 13% of 177 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Love Guru features far too many gross-out gags, and too few earned laughs, ranking as one of Mike Myers' poorest outings."[28]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 24 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[29] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film a grade "B -" on scale of A to F.[30]
Jay Stone of theNational Post gave the film one star and said the film "is shockingly crass, sloppy, repetitive and thin." Stone said "Chopra is used almost as aproduct placement, taking a proud spot alongside a circus, a brand of cinnamon buns, theLeafs and, of course, Mike Myers." Stone also wrote, "thesitar based versions of pop songs like '9 to 5' are oddly watchable – but mostly the film is 88 minutes of ridiculous sight gags and obscene puns."[31]
A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times wrote "The word 'unfunny' surely applies to Mr. Myers's obnoxious attempts to find mirth in physical and cultural differences but does not quite capture the strenuous unpleasantness of his performance. No,The Love Guru is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again."[32] Scott also commented that the appearance of actressMariska Hargitay was anticlimactic. An ongoing gag in the film is the use of "Mariska Hargitay" as a phonyHindi greeting.[32]
Roger Ebert gave the film 1 out of 4 stars, writing, "Myers has made some funny movies, but this film could have been written on toilet walls by callow adolescents. Every reference to a human sex organ or process of defecation is not automatically funny simply because it is naughty, but Myers seems to labor under that delusion."[33]
Harry Knowles ofAin't It Cool News wrote a highly negative review, sayingThe Love Guru "isn't merely a bad film, but a painful experience." He considered it one of the worst films of at least the past several years and also declared it might ruin Myers's career.[34]
Mick LaSalle ofSan Francisco Chronicle was one of the few major critics who did not write the film off completely, stating "Mike Myers' new comedy, "The Love Guru," is a disappointment, but it's not a disaster, and that's at least something."[35]
Myers later poked fun at the film's failure in an appearance on the December 20, 2014 episode ofSaturday Night Live, where he appeared asDr. Evil (a character from his far more successfulAustin Powers series), giving advice toSony Pictures on itscancellation of the release ofThe Interview: "if you really want to put a bomb in a theater, do what I did: put inThe Love Guru."[36]
| Award | Ceremony date | Category | Subject | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Raspberry Awards | February 21, 2009 | Worst Picture | Gary Barber,Michael De Luca andMike Myers | Won |
| Worst Director | Marco Schnabel | Nominated | ||
| Worst Actor | Mike Myers | Won | ||
| Worst Actress | Jessica Alba | Nominated | ||
| Worst Supporting Actor | Ben Kingsley | Nominated | ||
| Verne Troyer | Nominated | |||
| Worst Screenplay | Mike Myers and Graham Gordy | Won | ||
| March 6, 2010 | Worst Actor of the Decade | Mike Myers(also forThe Cat in the Hat) | Nominated |
Before the film's release,The Love Guru provoked mixed responses amongHindus. Some expressed unhappiness about how Hindus are portrayed in the film, believingThe Love Guru was disrespectful and risked givingHinduism a bad reputation among viewers not familiar with the faith. Other Hindus, such as an official statement from theInternational Society for Krishna Consciousness, gave the film a cautious welcome, saying the film "does not intend to hurt religious sentiments" and asking critics to see the film as satire and not a literal representation of Hinduism.[37]
Rajan Zed, a Hindu cleric from Nevada, asked thatParamount Pictures screen the film for members of the Hindu community before its release. Based on Zed's interpretation of the movie's trailer andMySpace page, he saidThe Love Guru "appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus" and risked reinforcing harmful stereotypes.[38] ProfessorDiane Winston, an expert on media and religion, said the film was seemingly more a critique of American attitudes towards "quick spiritual fixes" rather than a sustained satire of Hinduism.[38]
Paramount Pictures agreed to provide theHindu American Foundation (HAF) an opportunity to pre-screen the film as soon as it had a complete work print of the film, but ultimately did not follow through with this plan.[39] Instead, Paramount requested representatives of the Foundation attend aMinneapolis pre-screening the night before the film's release. HAF agreed to view the film after many requests fromAmerican Hindus who were concerned about the film. HAF reviewers concludedThe Love Guru was vulgar and crude but not "mean-spirited" or necessarilyanti-Hindu.[40]
A Nov. 2 start date has been set for "Austin Powers 2: The Wrath of Khan." Mike Myers will, of course, be back as that swingin' '60s spy guy, Austin Powers - as well as several other characters including Dr. Evil and someone called Guru Pitka. He'll have a new sidekick, Felicity Shagwell.
And with a B- CinemaScore grade from an audience that skewed slightly younger and male
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