Extras:
Music Video, Deleted Scenes, Photo Gallery, Trailers, Audio commentaries
Director:
Daisy Von Scherler Mayer
(The Guru, Madeline, Party Girl, Woo)
Producers:
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Michael London
Screenplay:
Tracey Jackson
Original Music :
David Carbonara
Cast :
Ramu Gupta: Jimi Mistry
Sharonna: Heather Graham
Lexi: Marisa Tomei
Dwain: Michael McKean
Rusty: Dash Mihok
Vijay: Emil Marwa
Amit: Raahul Singh
Chantal: Christine Baranski
Swami Bu: Ajay Mehta
Rasphal the Cook: Sanjeev Bhaskar
Jimi Mistry is The Guru
in the title, but something he doesn't even speculate will happen when he
first comes to America to seek his fortune.
After he's received letters from his brother about how easy it is to make a
success of yourself, he promises to fulfil the American dream of becoming a
star because if a sibling can get to live in a penthouse with a Mercedes, then
so can anyone. Only... his brother hasn't. He was lying. His brother works
in a restaurant as a waiter and slums it in a four-bedroom flat - that is,
a one-room flat with four mattresses in it for them and a couple of others,
including one illegal immigrant, in which to hole up together.
Ramu (Jimi Mistry) inadvertently and successfully passes an audition
to work as an adult star for porn baron Dwain
(Spinal Tap's
Michael McKean) by trotting out a hilarious spoof of Tom Cruise's
underwear "Old Time Rock N Roll" dance from Risky Business. However,
when he comes to 'perform' with the reknowned Sharonna (Heather Graham),
he has a rather limp bizkit.
As circumstances change and Ramu winds up filling in at short notice for the
great wise one, Swami Bu (Ajay Mehta), at a function held by aging
socialite Chantal (Cybill's Christine Baranski), little by little
he finds that the wisdom taught to him in private lessons by Sharrona, where
she thinks she's teaching him how to be a better porn star, helps him to go
the distance as a sex guru. It's an unlikely scenario, but one that pulls off
well.
Firstly, the words of carnal knowledge help him to pull Chantal's daughter
Lexi (the gorgeous I-can't-believe-she's-nearly-40 Marisa Tomei)
and then it's clear that there's feelings being shown between him and Sharrona,
but how can they become a couple when she's engaged to be married to a beefy
American fireman? Well, it's clear that there's an element of romantic comedy
in this movie but it's well done to the point that it doesn't intrude in the
proceedings too much and when love springs eternal, it's delivered as a
brilliant spoof of
Grease.
Ramu finds reading 'Dear Deirdre'
helps Lexi rearrange her chakaras.
The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and is
anamorphic. There's only slight defects from time to time but nothing to worry
about. The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English and Hungarian, plus an
English-only DTS 5.1 soundtrack. I always go for the latter option and it
sounds great, but being a comedy it's not effectively used outside the music
and dancing scenes.
There aren't a massive amount of extras, but what we have is as follows:
Music Video (4 mins):
The Sugababes' "Round Round". Used in the film but not quite
my cup of tea. I'm sure Keisha's nearly showing a nipple at one point.
Deleted Scenes (9 mins):
Presented in slightly iffy letterbox format, there's an extended opening
scene, a kitchen scene with Jimi Mistry and the cook, The Kumars'
Sanjeev Bhaskar and then a few brief clips which the film can live
without.
Photo Gallery (75 seconds):
Pictures to the backing of music.
Trailers: Main (2 mins) and teaser (1 min) trailers for this film, plus brief theatrical
trailers (1 min each) for Ned Kelly and that bloody Johnny English film again.
Audio commentaries:
Two here. One from director Daisy von Scherler Mayer and writer
Tracey Jackson, the other coming from lead star Jimi Mistry.
The main menu has an animated intro before getting to the static selectable
part, but is accompanied by music that is annoying at first, but once you've
seen the film it does become infectious. Subtitles are in English and
Hungarian and there are 20 chapters to the film.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
