Holy Man * 1/2 A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright by Serdar Yegulalp
Back in the early years of his career, Eddie Murphy was afflicted with what Roger Ebert termed "Star Magic Syndrome", where a hot young star is shoved blindly into one ill-conceived production after another, in the hopes that name-brand recognition will make up for shoddy writing or inept concepts. After the surefooted fun of DOCTOR DOOLITTLE and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, HOLY MAN is a step back to THE GOLDEN CHILD for Murphy.
Murphy plays a guru/swami-type figure named G (yes, just "G" -- [G]andhi? [G]autama? we never find out), whose idea of mysticism is parlor tricks and whose expoundings on philosophy are torn wholesale from sub-Robert Bly self-help books. He's the kind of character that desperately needs an edge, a twist. I kept thinking back to my own readings on Zen Buddhism, in which the masters slapped their disciples around mercilessly, insulted them, posed impossible riddles, and did all kinds of other off-the-wall things in the name of enlightenment. No two ways about it: G is boring.
G wanders into the lives of two TV execs (Jeff Goldblum and Kelly Preston), who are the manufactured romance for the movie. They're a little unnerved by this guy, even when he repairs the flat tires on their car. Every time they look at G, their faces seem to say something like: "What if he's one of those wackos who insinuates themselves into your life and kills your dog?" Now right there is something more interesting than anything that actually happens in the movie.
See, the execs are in charge of a rapidly-failing home shopping network which hawks various utterly unsellable products. They desperately need to revamp things. One day, on a whim, G wanders onto the set and does his thing -- and suddenly, merchandise is blowing out the door! This guy's a kick-butt salesman! This leads to him getting his own show (named, with agonizing predictability, "The G Spot").
Why isn't any of this funny? Probably because we can see it coming a billion miles away. Nothing happens in this movies because it's human nature -- certainly not the cardboard romance, which has Preston and Goldblum fighting, making up and getting back together in scenes of leaden predictability. And G isn't a counterpoint to anything: he's his own straight man. He has a bunch of unedifying little speeches and one long one that's not only unedifying, but dishonest, because it's a parable that we've heard way too many times before.
The writer, Tom Schulman, has indulged in this kind of sappiness before. He penned the insufferable DEAD POETS SOCIETY, which indulged in the insincere fiction that poetry and writing need to be "sold" to students with flashy technique instead of cherished on their own. Here, he's no better: he gives G nothing of importance to do, surrounds him with a setup that's bloodless and uninvolving, and fills his mouth with thimble-deep pop-psych blather.
Suggestions for the rewrite: Either ditch the romance or make it more bloodthirsty. And as for G, give him some actual attitude instead of just a smile. Here's one role where Eddie Murphy should actually have let the more scatological, scabrous side of his personality out of the closet. Failing that, maybe they should have case Chris Tucker. He would have been funny just standing there in swami pajamas.
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