The Love Guru | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Marco Schnabel |
Produced by |
Gary Barber Michael De Luca Mike Myers |
Written by | Mike Myers Graham Gordy |
Starring | Mike Myers Jessica Alba Justin Timberlake Romany Malco Meagan Good Verne Troyer John Oliver Omid Djalili Ben Kingsley Daniel Tosh |
Music by | George S. Clinton |
Cinematography | Peter Deming |
Edited by |
Billy Weber Lee Haxall |
Production
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Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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87 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $62 million |
Box office | $40.9 million |
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 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.
The film begins in a little Indian village named "Harenmahkeester", 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 (Pitka's mantra is "Mariska Hargitay"). We attend one of his teachings which involve a lot of acronyms 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.