The Love Guru
Mike Myers likes to take a mediocre gag and hammer it to death. Sometimes, like David Letterman, he can wring laughter out of repetition through sheer kooky enthusiasm. Think of the shushing scene in the first “Austin Powers.” Myers finds no such inspiration in “The Love Guru,” in which he plays an American-born, Indian-raised self-help crackpot. It’s funny the first few times Myers says hello by pressing his hands together and solemnly intoning “Mariska Hargitay,” the musically named “Law and Order: SVU” star. But when he greets Hargitay herself early in the movie, the joke jumps the shark – and Myers keeps at it anyway. “The Love Guru” feels like a desperate attempt to stay relevant by Myers, whose brand of literal-minded gross-out humor ran its course in the 90s. He’s still playing wacky caricatures when the likes of Judd Apatow, Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn have married bawdy comedy with honest emotion. Myers also appears reluctant to yield the punch lines to his co-stars. Otherwise he’d surround himself with more nimble performers than Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake and Verne Troyer, the erstwhile Mini-Me who shows up only so Myers can mock his diminutive stature. The plot – involving the guru’s attempt to reunite a neurotic hockey player and his wife – wouldn’t keep a six-year-old in suspense. The movie runs out of gas in the first half-hour. For the rest of its mercifully short 90 minutes, “The Love Guru” serves up more of the same.
LISTEN: The Love Guru