At Least He Didn’t Use A Scottish Accent This Time | Mike Myers gets called on the carpet in The Love Guru.
It’s safe to say that seeing Hrundi V. Bakshi being slapped in the face with a urine-soaked mop or riding a copulating pachyderm would have done little to contribute to either The Party’s timeless appeal or the legacy of Peter Sellers. Yet Mike Myers, clearly trying to follow in his idol’s footsteps, seems to have no shame about going to the grossout well for cheap laughs (or indeed, any shame at all) in The Love Guru, a film you won’t even remember by the time you leave the parking lot, let alone 40 years later.
Myers plays Pitka, an American-born, Indian-trained self-help mystic, a characterization he apparently created by taking the mannerisms of Austin Powers and The Cat in the Hat and adding a vaguely Indian accent. Unable to show any semblance of restraint, Myers giggles maniacally while frantically gesticulating, making co-star Jessica Alba’s painfully bland performance as the comely owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs look even more inert by comparison. Alba enlists Pitka to help their star player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) through his wife’s affair with the L.A. Kings’ French Canadian goalie Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Justin Timberlake), whose ego is almost as grotesquely engorged as his other extremities.
Several Hindu groups have objected to what they consider The Love Guru’s “frivolous” use of Hindu ideas and terms. Their accusations might be true, if Hindu traditions consisted solely of crass, junior high school-level sexual humour and tired pop-culture sendups. Sure, all the predictable parodies of lengthy Indian names, Bollywood videos, Eastern mysticism guides, and yes-you-can self-help acronyms are represented, each getting their own vulgar twist. But not even the most undiscriminating viewer could confuse Myers’ third-eye-in-my-pants style with anything resembling actual Hindu customs or beliefs.
His more-is-more brand of comedy drags down even his mediocre supporting cast. Verne “Mini-Me” Troyer is used solely as the brunt of recycled dwarf jokes, while John Oliver plays Pitka’s business associate Dick Pants, and Ben Kingsley mugs his way to another paycheque as Pitka’s crosseyed mentor Guru Tugginmypudha. The one glimmer of comic inspiration is Timberlake, who’s clearly enjoying himself and plays his well-endowed sleazebag with as much carefree energy as Myers put into his guru.
In fact, Guru’s sole saving grace (as well as its greatest annoyance) is its unbridled enthusiasm. Myers works overtime to squeeze smirks from even the most laboured wisecracks, but there’s still only so much of his strained wheezing, Cheshire-Cat grin, and shameless mugging that one can stomach in one outing.
The brigade of early-’90s Saturday Night Live performers—the same gang who gave us a movie about a flamboyant Israeli commando hairstylist just a couple of weeks ago—often pay tribute to comic legends like Peter Sellers (or Phil Hartman) but fail to bring the same subtle touch to their own movies. But even Goldmember looks like a model of sophistication and nuance compared to The Love Guru. Partway through the film, Myers chortles, “I’m sure you’re sick of this.” We are, sir. You’re coasting, and we all know you can do better than urine-soaked mops.
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