# Holy Man (1998)

### reviewed by
Jamie Peck

HOLY MAN Reviewed by Jamie Peck

Rating: ** (out of ****) Touchstone / 1:54 / 1998 / PG (language, some naughty humor) Cast: Jeff Goldblum; Eddie Murphy; Kelly Preston; Robert Loggia; John Cryer; Eric McCormack; Sam Kitchin; Robert Small; Morgan Fairchild Director: Stephen Herek Screenplay: Tom Schulman

With the talents of Eddie Murphy and a premise that satirizes the home-shopping phenom, Disney's "Holy Man" could have really been a divine comedy. Instead, it's an unholy mess, and a large part of the finger-wagging should be directed at those behind the scenes who decided to bury the promising star-and-story-combo underneath sloppy streaks of sentimentality and seriousness. Talk about a film not knowing what it has - all of this sinful squandering is enough to send "Holy Man" straight to the nearest confessional.

Forgive Murphy but not the movie. The comedian's turn as a bald, homeless, robe-clad purveyor of peace, love and happiness is a beatific breath of fresh air, especially on the heels of some delightfully unhinged work in summer's stirring "Mulan" and scatological "Dr. Dolittle." His character is simply called G, and the letter might as well be his rating, too - waiting for Murphy to cut loose in the wild ways that post-"Nutty Professor" crowds crave is ultimately fruitless. In "Holy Man," he doesn't get to fart or cuss or crack wise about sexual functions. It must be that higher plain.

A near-auto mishap puts G's spiritual pilgrimage on hold when, while wandering the highways of Miami, he's almost hit by a Jaguar belonging to harried television executive Ricky Hayman (Jeff Goldblum). Ricky, who works for the struggling, QVC-esque Good Buy Shopping Network, reluctantly allows G to convalesce at his beach-side home, and it's only a matter of time before the recovered prophet winds up on the small screen, hawking junky goods like seasonal doormats and a bidet that sprays its user with "a kiss of refreshing mist."

Here's the twist: G preaches as he pitches, assuring viewers that they would probably be better off _not_ giving into materialistic whims, but people buy big time anyhow. Too bad Murphy's Zenistic life lessons are completely transparent and often play like long-winded set-ups for punchlines that never arrive. The pokes at consumer culture are dead-on, but too often the film brushes aside the funny stuff for surprisingly straight-faced subplots, the eye-rolling pinnacle of which is a romantic sidetrack between Ricky and a cute media analyst (Kelly Preston).

"Holy Man" gets so loaded down with all this unnecessary bunk that it completely loses track of what it set out to spoof - even Murphy disappears for large chunks of the movie's second hour so the focus can be turned to heavy-handed drama, complete with a schmaltzy soundtrack and slow fade-outs. But all is not lost; Murphy and Goldblum make fantastic foils during the limited time they have together, and the film trots out a galaxy of self-depreciating stars to poke some sly fun at celebrity image as they push their products on Good Buy.

There's Morgan Fairchild's fabulous facelift machine and James Brown's ambulance-alerting medical belt that screams, "Help me, help me! Good God!" But the best bit finds ex-Golden Girl Betty White peddling an aphrodisiac scent that makes her climax right there on the air. As for most everything else, buyer - and viewer - beware.

© 1998 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit The Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/ "So the two continue to drop fruit, finally dropping a whole lot of fruit. End of scene, with a whole lot of fruit on the sidewalk. At least when David Letterman was dropping watermelons off buildings he showed them hitting the sidewalk in slow motion." -Roger Ebert on "That Old Feeling"

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