Guru Pitka, a pop philosopher who yearns to seize Chopra's mantle as America's favorite spiritual guide, has grown convinced that a shot on Oprah. will make him top dog. He can earn that shot if he meets the public challenge of reuniting a depressed Toronto Maple Leafs star (Romany Malco) with his estranged wife (Meagan Good) during the NHL finals. The team's beautiful owner (Jessica Alba) will pay the Love Guru $2 million if he completes the task; she's anxious for the team to win its first Stanley Cup since 1967 and shake off what the city of Toronto considers her family's curse. If the Guru succeeds, she might help him unlock the chastity belt that he's been wearing since adolescence, under orders not to remove it until he loves himself.
I can see what drew Myers to The Love Guru. As a sketch artist on Saturday Night Live, he had an uncanny gift for nailing the spot where the outre met the ordinary, whether on Dieter's arty German TV show or in the basement studio of Wayne's World. And, as an extemporaneous wit, Myers can be as funny as Mel Brooks: He even turned an episode of Inside the Actors Studio into a laugh riot.
Good-sport celebrities as well as genuine funnymen keep showing up, but the gifted British comic John Oliver of The Daily Show can't do much as Pitka's manager except look hyperbolically concerned. Stephen Colbert cleverly exploits his oddball-precise timing as half of a hockey-announcing team, but he stays at one remove from the rest of the movie, using the sportscasting booth as an isolation booth.
The Love Guru himself relies even more than Myers' characters usually do on self-delight; as Pitka, Myers doesn't just cock his eyelid at an audience, he turns his whole broad face and stocky body into a sagging wink. And he's so outsized all the rest of the characters can do is laugh at him or punch him or bow to his pseudo-genius. (Verne Troyer, as the coach of the Maple Leafs, gets in the best jabs.)
To judge from the crowd reaction, a phalanx of true believers might, indeed, go along for the ride, but newcomers to the Mike Myers experience will leave this love train early.
michael.sragow@baltsun.com
Online
Watch a preview and see more photos from The Love Guru at baltimoresun.com/guru
The Love Guru
(Paramoun t) Starring Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Ben Kingsley. Directed by Marco Schnabel. Rated PG-13 for crude sexual content, language, comic violence and drug references. Time 88 minutes.
