The Love Guru Information

The Love Guru is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Marco Schnabel in his directorial debut, written and produced by Mike Myers, and starring Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Verne Troyer, John Oliver, Omid Djalili, and Ben Kingsley. In addition to starring in the film, Myers wrote The Love Guru with Graham Gordy and produced it with Gary Barber. It is the second film release by Paramount Pictures to star Myers and Timberlake, with the first being Shrek The Third.

Plot

Darren Roanoke, the star player of the Toronto Maple Leafs, is suffering from stress because his wife, Prudence, has left him for Jacques "Le Coq" Grandé, who is the goaltender of rival team Los Angeles Kings, his nickname apparently a nod to being exceedingly well-endowed. Roanoke's stress causes his hand to shake, which affects his hockey performance, so team owner Jane Bullard enlists the support of Guru Maurice Pitka to help Darren with his stress so that the team can hopefully break their losing streak.

Cast

• Mike Myers as Guru Maurice Pitka / Young Pitka / Teenage Pitka / Himself
• Jessica Alba as Jane Bullard
• Justin Timberlake as Jacques "Le Coq" Grandé
• Romany Malco as Darren Roanoke
• Meagan Good as Prudence Roanoke
• Verne Troyer as Coach Punch Cherkov
• Omid Djalili as Guru Satchabigknoba / Gagandeep Singh
• Ben Kingsley as Guru Tugginmypudha
• Telma Hopkins as Lillian Roanoke
• Manu Narayan as Rajneesh, Pitka's assistant
• John Oliver as Dick Pants
• Stephen Colbert as Jay Kell
• Jim Gaffigan as Trent Lueders
• Rob Huebel as Bar Patron / Cameo
• Daniel Tosh as Cowboy Hat

As themselves

• Mariska Hargitay
• Jessica Simpson
• Kanye West
• Val Kilmer (uncredited)
• Morgan Freeman (voice)
• Rob Blake
• Deepak Chopra

Music

The original score for the film was composed by George S. Clinton, who recorded it with an 80-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at Warner Bros.

The song "Dhadak Dhadak" from the 2005 Bollywood film 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 with sitar accompaniment) and on the soundtrack. "Brimful of Asha" was also used in the film.

Promotion

Myers appeared in the seventh season finale of American Idol as Pitka, the "spiritual director" of that show. The finalists David Cook and David Archuleta got to visit the Paramount Pictures studio theatre to see The 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" at Fox Entertainment's beliefnet.com website was "created as part of a collaboration between Beliefnet and Paramount Pictures."

Box-office performance

The film did poorly at the box-office. On 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. The opening week numbers fell short of the $20 million range forecast by Hollywood pundits. The film grossed $32,190,314 in the United States and Canada with only an additional $8.7 million overseas, for a total of $40.8 million worldwide.

Critical reception

The Love Guru received extremely negative reviews; as of August 2012, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 14% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 125 reviews; the site's critical consensus states, "The Love Guru features far too many gross-out gags, and too few earned laughs, ranking as one of Mike Myers' poorest outings." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 24 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.

Jay Stone of the National Post gave the film one star and said the film "is shockingly crass, sloppy, repetitive and thin." Stone said "Chopra is used almost as a product placement, taking a proud spot alongside a circus, a brand of cinnamon buns, the Leafs and, of course, Mike Myers." Stone also wrote, "the sitar-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."

A. O. Scott of The 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." Scott also commented that the cameo appearance of actress Mariska Hargitay was anti-climactic. An ongoing gag in the film is the use of "Mariska Hargitay" as a phoney Hindi greeting.

Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News was disgusted with the film, considering it one of the worst films of at least the past several years, and going so far as to declare it a career-killing movie for Myers.

Razzie Awards

Nominee	Category	Result
Gary Barber Michael De Luca Mike Myers	Worst Picture
Mike Myers	Worst Actor
Jessica Alba	Worst Actress
Ben Kingsley	Worst Supporting Actor
Verne Troyer
Mike Myers Graham Gordy	Worst Screenplay
Marco Schnabel	Worst Director

Portrayal of Hinduism

Before the film's release, some Hindus expressed unhappiness about how Hindus are portrayed, the disrespect of their culture and the bad impression that it would give those not well exposed to Hinduism, while some gave a cautious welcome, asking other Hindus to look at it as satire and not the truth. Rajan Zed, a Hindu leader from Nevada, demanded that Paramount Pictures screen the film for members of the Hindu community before its release. Based on the movie's trailer and MySpace page, Zed said The Love Guru "appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus" and uses sacred terms frivolously. He told The Associated Press, "People are not very well-versed in Hinduism, so this might be their only exposure...They will have an image in their minds of stereotypes. They will think most of us are like that."

Paramount Pictures agreed to provide the Hindu American Foundation an opportunity pre-screen the film as soon as it had a complete work print of the film, but did not do this. Instead, it requested the Foundation attend a Minneapolis pre-screening the night before the film's release. HAF agreed to view the film to be able to inform the Hindu American community in light of concerned inquiries that were reported to its national headquarters. The reviewers concluded that the film was vulgar and crude but not necessarily anti-Hindu.