Guru, The MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +2 Content: -3

The Guru aims to create a new film genre, resulting in a unique romantic comedy with some good dance sequences. It crosses the music, dance and costumes of a Ballywood (India) movie with the drama and frankness of Hollywood. The Guru tells the story of Ramu Gupta (Jimi Mistry), a handsome dancing instructor from India who moves to New York to live the American dream. He hopes to become a main-stream movie actor but only finds work waiting tables and acting in porn films. Through his friendship with porn star Sharonna (Heather Graham), he learns the secrets of the trade. Ramu finds himself mistaken for a guru, so he begins teaching the values he has learned from Sharonna. This brings him great popularity and material success. He fears what will happen when Sharonna discovers that he has been selling her secrets, and his conscience pushes him towards telling her the truth.

One of the movies strongest themes is honesty. Telling the truth is portrayed as always being the right choice. The other major theme is sex, which is defined as connecting a person to himself. The film acknowledges that sex is more than a physical function, but a great deal of New Age philosophy is used to describe the meaning of sex. Sex is not shown to have a special place in marriage between two committed people, and God is referred to as an abstract being, used to bring in money. An amoral Roman Catholic priest is shown to be a porn film viewer. Two men kiss on the lips, and homosexuality is portrayed as being as legitimate as heterosexuality. For all its conversation concerning sex, it really doesnt take any of it very seriously. Due to the films casual treatment of pornography and the gay lifestyle, sexual situations with vulgar dialogue, and brief nudity, you dont need a guru to tell you to avoid this one.

Preview Reviewer: Blaine Butcher
Distributor: Universal Pictures