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The Guru
(Reviewed February 4, 2003)
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A stunningly strange throwback to the gone-and-not-particularly-missed days of "Love American Style," this is a remarkably lunkheaded sex farce without any sex but with an awful lot of talk about it. An Indian dance instructor moves to New York with Big Dreams, gets unknowingly sidetracked into the wacky world of porn video, and emerges as a platitude-spouting and rich-folk-duping "Guru of Sex."
What keeps all of this relentless unfunniness from getting an "F" is the stimulating presence of Heather Graham (as a huge-breasted porn star) and Marisa Tomei (as a yummy, preposterously new-age flake). Full of achingly dated cultural references (Macarena and Sallye Jesse Raphael, anyone?) and not-clever-enough-to-be-ironic ethnic stereotypes (Indian cabbies! How incisive!), "The Guru" only really comes alive during a lip-synced "Bollywood"-style production number set to (gulp) John Travolta's and Olivia Newton-John's "You're the One That I Want" from Grease. (Heather Graham in a gold harem outfit is rather unforgettable.)
Female-flesh fans should be aware that there are only a scant few incidents of nudity, NONE of which involve the lovely Marisa or the radiant Heather (quite a trick, considering Heather's character's profession in the film).
Also, my own name is unaccountably missing from the end credits, even though the title of one of the porn videos being made during the course of the movie ("Glad He Ate Her" as a pun on "Gladiator") is a line I used in my June 2001 PENTHOUSE FORUM column titled "They Don't Make 'Em Like This: Hot Hints for Hollywood." Wow, I guess they actually took that particular "hint"--literally!
Back Row Grade: D
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