# Holy Man (1998)

### reviewed by
Michael Redman

    Holy Man not whole

    Holy Man
    A Film Review By Michael Redman
    Copyright 1998 By Michael Redman

    * (Out of ****)

Birthdays often cause individuals to access their lives. Are we doing what we want to be doing? What happened to our dreams? With the new millennium, our collective big birthday, just around the corner, some people are sensing a certain dissatisfaction with their existence.

The old standbys of traditional religion and science aren't doing it for many anymore and they're looking for something else. We'll be seeing more and more films with a metaphysical theme over the next few years.

Ricky Hayman (Jeff Goldblum) is having a career crisis. The programming director for the Good Buy Home Shopping Network, he's going to be fired unless sales increase dramatically . New producer Kate Newell (Kelly Preston) is supposed to whip things into shape.

When the two are fixing a flat, they almost run down new age pilgrim "G" (Murphy). G wanders onto the television set and connects with the viewers by telling them that they don't really want all that commercial crap. In some unexplained manner, this causes sales to sour. Ricky is saved.

The movie tries to be too much at once and fails at it all. It's not an over-the-top comedy or a heart-warming message of humanity. It _is_ a mish-mosh of poorly directed scenes made even worse by insipid dialog.

I am willing to put up with preaching from a film, but the messages here are old hat. You should take time to smell the roses. Selling your soul for cash is a bad idea. Golly. I'm glad I saw the movie. I never would have thought of these.

The opportunity to poke fun at the goofy products is mostly missed. When G takes a chainsaw to the set, there's an obvious chance for Murphy to be hilarious. It doesn't happen. The bits are so subdued and overly-long that there's only a hint of laughter from the audience.

Murphy has changed his roles in recent years and not for the better. There are hints of promise in this one. The only time the film picks up even a little is when his shaved-headed character in the long flowing white caftan shows up on screen.

The others are horrendous. Goldblum has episodes of brilliance in his career, but here he seems to have been replaced with a lifeless pod from his "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers". His relationship with Kate makes no sense. They move from antagonism to love somewhere off screen. Preston is as uninteresting as she could possibly be.

Somewhere hidden deep inside of this film is about ten minutes of value. An attempt to satirize stupid television, we get a self-parody instead.

[This appeared in the 10/15/98 "Bloomington Independent", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at Redman@indepen.com.] -- mailto:redman@indepen.com This week's film review at http://www.indepen.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman

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