HOLY MAN
A Film Review by Brian Takeshita
Rating: 1/2* out of ****
Did I do something bad? I must have, because sitting through this movie was sheer punishment.
Here's the plot. Ricky (Jeff Goldblum) is producer of The Good-Buy Network, one of those 24-hour home shopping channels. The new boss (Robert Loggia) plans to can Ricky's behind if he doesn't turn the previous months' flat sales numbers around, and to add to his problems, Ricky also has to work with Kate (Kelly Preston), the ivy league wunderkind whom the boss has brought with him. Kate and Ricky don't get along and don't have any great ideas until they meet G (Eddie Murphy), a spiritualist who sees something positive in everything. His soothing voice and simple logic makes people feel good, and it's this quality that will make G the new GBN television star and the key to the network's success.
The first problem is a flaw in the plot. Sure, G makes people feel good. Sure, we're told that most people feel guilty after buying an impulse item, no matter how wealthy they might be, and I'll even believe that G talks a talk that allows people to feel good about what they've bought. But, hey, that's after they've bought it. Why do sales skyrocket the first time G is on camera? Far from trying to sell the product, G instead blathers on about how you don't even need the thing. Someone please tell me how this is supposed to move merchandise in the first place. You might say that people feel good about what they've bought, so they come back and by more, but due to the simple fact that the first round of sales in inexplicable, I'm not convinced this is what the filmmakers had in mind. The whole movie is therefore seriously undermined because the key point in the plot is never credible.
Another problem is in the humor. You know, if you see that Eddie Murphy is in a movie, I think it is not unreasonable for you to expect that the film is a comedy. Whoa, partner, are you in for a surprise. HOLY MAN is not funny. Murphy, the one asset you'd think this movie has (remember how they brought him in at the last minute to save BEST DEFENSE? - then again, maybe you don't) is seriously reigned in. The script gives him almost nothing to work with, and it seems as though director Stephen Herek kept him toned down so that the other actors in the film wouldn't be left as window dressing. There's only one moment in the film where Murphy is allowed to let loose, and it lasts for three shouted words, which seem totally out of place as a result. Pathetic. In all, there are about three jokes that work in the entire picture, and they're not even that great. As a side note, there are some cameo appearances such as Dan Marino pitching a contraption which allows you to cook off of your car engine, and James Brown introducing a medic-alert device that shouts "help me!" just like the Hardest Working Man in Show Business at the push of a button, but these never cause your personal laugh-o-meter to rise above the level of mild bemusement.
"Well," you ask, "surely there must be some convincing performances to make up for the lack of humor." Think again, Buckwheat. Jeff Goldblum disappoints. Kelly Preston is flat (but not like that). Robert Loggia, in the kind of role for which he has been virtually typecast, can't do anything with it. The script is part of the problem, but these actors don't even look like they believe in the move they're making. They look a lot like they're bored. Just like the audience.
So what do you have when the humor is absent from your comedy, and the acting is like the Siberian steppes? A film that drags more than a dropped anchor. But wait! As if these problems don't make the film slow enough, the screenplay's pacing makes the movie even slower! It takes the entire first half hour to establish the movie's premise, then more time as the film wades through a tortuous (and seemingly mandatory) romance between Ricky and Kate, and a sub-plot involving a conniving PR man (Eric McCormack) who wants to discredit G and take over Ricky's job as producer. When the PR guy's plan is foiled, the film is climaxes, we're treated to that little epilogue, and then we can all go home, right? Wrong. The movie goes on for another half hour! Continental drift is the Indy 500 compared to the pace of HOLY MAN!
The only thing holy about HOLY MAN will surely be the number of people exclaiming "Holy !@#% that movie was awful!" This one is for the truly pious.
Review posted October 12, 1998
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