The Love Guru is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Marco Schnabel in his directorial debut, written and produced by Mike Myers, and starring Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Verne Troyer, John Oliver, Omid Djalili, and Ben Kingsley. The film was also Myers and Timberlake's second collaboration after Shrek the Third (2007).
The film was a financial flop, and earned overwhelmingly negative reviews.
Plot
The film begins in a little Indian village, where we are introduced to Guru Pitka talking into his recorder which allows him to sound like a man, a woman, or Morgan Freeman. He is the #2 Guru in the world, next to Deepak Chopra. A flashback shows us that Pitka is an orphan of missionaries in India. Both Pitka and Chopra were taught by Guru Tugginmypudha. Pitka says he wants to become a Guru so that girls will love him, so 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 #1 Guru and to get on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He lives a charmed life scooting around on his mobile pillow. He has thousands of followers, including celebrities like Jessica Simpson, Val Kilmer and Mariska Hargitay (the latter being ironic since Pitka's mantra, is "Mariska Hargitay"). We attend one of his teachings which involve a lot of anagrams and play on words on a slide show (i.e, "guru" meaning "gee, you are you" and going from Nowhere to Now Here). Pitka has a gorgeous palace with a beautiful female staff, helicopter, elephants, and a servant, Rajneesh, who squeezes fresh orange juice out of a tree for him and has an ostrich lay his morning egg for him.
Meanwhile, in Canada. Jane Bullard's father died and left her the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. They have not won a Stanley Cup since she took over so the city hates her. Her star player, Darren Roanoke, the Tiger Woods of Hockey, has been playing poorly ever since his wife Prudence left him for a well endowed French Canadian, Jacques "Lè Cocq" Grandè, who plays for the rival Los Angeles Kings. He has a tattoo on his abdomen that reads "The Legend" with an arrow pointing down. When Pitka is introduced to Jane Bullard, he imagines a Bollywood musical fantasy with her in it. Jane is a big fan of Pitka's, having read all of his books. She is paying him 2 million dollars to patch up Darren's marriage, in time to win the Stanley Cup. Pitka's agent, Dick Pants, is thrilled and says that if Pitka patches up the marriage, Oprah will have him on her show.
Pitka has an acronym, DRAMA, tattoed on his hand. D represents Distraction. Guru Tugginmypudha taught him the lesson of distraction with the use of his own urine. Pitka encourages the rival team to beat Darren up during a game, thus distracting him from his emotional distress over Prudence and Le Cocq. Darren begins to play well but then gets suspended for the next two games after beating up Le Cocq and hitting Coach Cherkov with a hockey puck. There is a meeting in the Coach's tiny office, complete with mini water cooler, where they argue about the situation. Later, Pitka has dinner with Jane, gets her to move in for a kiss, only to hear a ding on his chastity belt. He tells her it can not be, and she does not understand and runs out. Next, Pitka tells Darren to write an apology note to Prudence. Pitka gets in a huge fight with Le Cocq's guard rooster in order to deliver the note.
The R in Drama is Regression. Apparently Darren is afraid of his mother. They confront her at her Church choir but she ends up scaring both Pitka and Darren out of the church with her harsh words. Time is running out, so Pitka skips through the rest of the anagram. He distracts Le Cocq with his idol, Celine Dion, then lies to Prudence, telling her Darren stood up to his mom, getting her to go back to Darren. At the last game. Le Cocq, having overheard that Darren cannot play with his mother in the audience, gets Darren's mother to sing the national anthem, causing Darren to run out of the game. Meanwhile, Pitka is at the airport, on his way to the Oprah show. He sees the news on TV and defies his agent by going to the game to help Darren, as well as show Jane (who manages to stand up to the angry crowd) his chastity belt. After smoothing things over with his mother, Darren is OK again until Le Cocq says Prudence also said "Damn" to him in bed. Darren freezes and Pitka realizes he needs to distract Darren from whatever is troubling him.
Pitka gets two elephants to have sex in the middle of the ring, in front of millions of TV audience, which distracts Le Cocq and helps Darren wake up from his stupor and hit the winning goal. After the game, Pitka makes up with Jane and Coach Cherkov, then meets Deepak Chopra and decides that he is fine with being the first Guru Pitka instead of the next Deepak Chopra. and everyone lives happily ever after. Back in the Indian village, Guru Tugginmypudha tella Pitka that he has finally learned to love himself and removes Pitka's chastity belt, as there was a hook in the back. Jane and Pitka kiss. The ending is a rendition of the Steve Miller Band song "The Joker]]" with Jane and Pitka dancing Indian musical style.
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, Darren's wife and Jacques' lover
- 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
- Oprah Winfrey