adonis98-743-186503 Eddie Murphy stars as an over-the-top television evangelist who finds a way to turn television home shopping into a religious experience, and takes America by storm. Eddie Murphy has always been a good comedian but even talented actors once in a while star in garbage movies also Jeff Goldblum and Kelly Preston? so many great actors and the end result is a boring unfunny comedy with bland characters, bad writing and above all a waste of my time plus forced cameos that no one asked for. (0/10)

wes-connors His job security is tenuous because program manager Jeff Goldblum (as Ricky Hayman) has failed to get viewers to tune in and order merchandise from the Miami-based "Good Buy Shopping Network" (GBSN). Attractive blonde Kelly Preston (as Kate Newell) is hired to help make the station turn a profit. At first, Ms. Preston clashes with Mr. Goldblum. Later, they have trouble deciding whether to kiss or quarrel. While driving, the couple has a flat tire and winds up almost hitting an apparently homeless Eddie Murphy (as "G."). After fainting, Mr. Murphy is brought to a hospital...Murphy is dismissed from the hospital and moves in with Goldblum. Physically fit, Murphy makes a health drink for his host which may include urine. Goldblum is preoccupied with work. Murphy acts like a happy guru, promoting the power of positive thinking. While obviously non-materialistic, Murphy innocently joins GBSN hosts, helping pitch their products. This winds up helping Goldblum. Murphy's winning personality makes the home shopping network a sales sensation, but at a cost...Murphy receives "over the title" star-billing, but Goldblum is arguably the leading man. Editing may have resulted in Murphy getting less screen time; it's difficult to tell. More probably, the actors were paid more millions than film realized at the box office. Murphy is acting out of his comfort zone and Goldblum always seems to work best opposite special effects. The overall film fails, but there are effective scenes. For example, Murphy crashing Goldblum's party is fun, with Eric McCormack (as Scott Hawkes) contributing well (throughout). As GBSN co-workers, Jon Cryer and Robert Loggia lend good support...There are several celebrity cameos. Worst may be Betty White advertising an aphrodisiac that make women smell like clams (apparently). Best is Morgan Fairchild promoting a non-surgical "face-lift" which distorts her visage. Moreover, director Stephen Herek and Murphy should have worked together to improve the latter's participation in the GBSN skits - perhaps adding a little of the spontaneous happenstance Lucille Ball delivered so well. This might have also helped Murphy's "chainsaw" segment, which seems out-of-character and doesn't pull all the potential comedy from the situation.**** Holy Man (10/9/98) Stephen Herek ~ Jeff Goldblum, Eddie Murphy, Kelly Preston, Eric McCormack

david-sarkies This is a really surprising movie to come out of Disneyland (or Touchstone Pictures, which is Disney's non-children specific film house). I say this because in a way it is very anti-capitalist, and has people come to the understanding that using people to get to where they want to be is not a good thing. In fact, this movie seems to spit in the face of what is typical about American Culture - that is that the individual is most important and the success of the individual, over and above the welfare of others, is what counts the most.The movie focuses around an executive in a home shopping network. The problem is that this network is failing due to lack of sales, and he is given the blame. He thinks himself to be a pretty good salesperson, but the reality is that he is the same as all the others. Then one day they find themselves broken down on the freeway and sees a weird man walking along the medium strip. He tries to hide from him but his partner sees him and waves. This man, G (Eddie Murphy) responds and approaches them. Even though the executive does not want G around, he comes to see that G has a lot of charisma and simply attracts people. Upon seeing this, he begins to use G for everything that he has.The movie is thus about how this executive comes to terms with himself and how he is treating G. G will do anything for him and asks for nothing in return. Though G spouts a lot of wisdom, he will use his charisma and the things that he talks about to sell products. He really doesn't care what G has to say, nor is he interested in what he has to say to others. Rather he wants to increase his sales quota so that he can remain in his job.It is interesting to note that the movie begins appearing to be one way with an antagonist, but this guy vanishes quickly and we realise that the antagonist is the executive himself. He doesn't crash and burn though, but rather realises the gift that he has been given, and upon seeing that, releases G. What G has showed him that it is not the money or material goods that count, but the relationships that we have with others. When we lose something, then we know that it is gone. In a way, we take things foregranted until they are gone. This is not the key to the movie, but one of the minor things that comes out of it.It is not a movie about redemption, nor is it a tragedy, but rather it is about a man who comes to understand himself and how he has completely missed the point of things. Personally, I think it is very good.

johnnyboyz Where Holy Man might have been a rather scabrous attack on the shallowness surrounding those both working within the television shopping channel industry and the industry itself, it ends up being a pretty meek love story; where it might have been a quite gripping story of one man being put through a proverbial wringer as his life and job threaten to fall apart, it ends up a damp squib of flat laughs and uninvolving drama; where it might have had its two lead male players bounce off of one another as they effectively 'body swap' their respective film star demeanours, it ends up an uninteresting and gloomy tale about the exploration of one's soul with additional life-lecturing content which drags. Stephen Herek's Holy Man is a disjointed and loose item, a film whose central tract appears to be about faux-public idolisation with a television star quite literally brought in off the street combined with the fatuity behind a shopping network, but in actual fact is about a rather dull love story between two people we don't like with one of them eventually coming to suffer a moral crisis we don't care about. Its politics and basic roots are there, but coming from the director of such films as 1988's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and 1996's 101 Dalmatians, it just doesn't quite gel.It's Jeff Goldblum's character at the core of Holy Man; here playing rather-a high flying television executive, a manager at a local television network station named Ricky Hayman whose life it is established during the opening exchanges usually begins with the cruising to work in a sports car across the sun drenched roads of Miami against some pumping techno music in order to start a new day. After waltzing into his workplace, the super smooth manager glides from one locale within the television studio to another, finding time for small talk to any women within the vicinity as well as dealing with the odd cell phone call. What comes into his little world to upset this balance of perfection is in the form of his boss, and the owner of the entire station, John McBainbridge (Loggia); whom calls him into his office and outlines, in what is a guilty example of agonising exposition for both Hayman's and the audience's benefit, what it is that's on the line. That is, that times are not good. The network is loosing more money than it is making and Hayman has two weeks to make 'x' amount of money, or face redundancy at a cost of the network's flailing sales. With Kelly Preston's Kate Newell looming ominously in the background and supposedly pining for Hayman's job, Hayman notes what's on the line and sets to work on his task of rectifying the situation so as to preserve what he's got running already.Central to these proceedings is Eddie Murphy's spiritual figure named 'G'; a man whose name is what it is so that the writers can crack dopey 'G' jokes such as "G Whizz" or "G Spot" later on; a linen cloth-clad man whom parades down the central reservation of a main road kissing the grass and smelling the air, an eternal pacifist, even ignoring impacting litter thrown specifically at him by youths riding along in an open top vehicle. Hayman is initially as reluctant to have anything to do with G: where he is calculating, G goes with the flow; where he is a ruthless businessman, G is a free-and-easy spirit and where Hayman is stiff and reactionary G is relaxed and greets everything with a grin - it is only through Kate's intrigue of the man that they are all brought together, before having to come to form a bond throughout the rest of the film. As it becomes obvious that G might just be the thing the network needs to boost sales, a crucial question arises which determines both the path and respective framework both the film and Hayman will go down; something attentive viewers will work out relatively quickly: will Hayman merely exploit the guru? Or, will he have an overall change of heart before coming to realise that those of a polar opposition, whom might initially be shunned, do in fact have their place in life and aren't all that bad once you get involved with them.Dull framework eventually comes to win out over crass political incorrectness, the aforementioned body swapping seeing Goldblum play the eccentric; loud; frenetic; all-over-the-place protagonist to Murphy's calmer; more reserved and reigned in supporting act, something both actors are perhaps more commonly associated with doing the other way round. They don't bounce off of one another particularly well, sharing little chemistry and flat exchanges while it is very difficult to get behind a character of Hayman's stature given his goal is to, ultimately, get people out there in the world to begin buying stuff again in this brutal world of consumerism and materialism. The film doesn't quite explore the fatuity of the world in which its set; limp celebrity cameos-come-pay cheques effectively defeating the purpose of what it is ought to be explored, while G's eventual status as a God-like television personality does little but highlight idolisation through TV as a phenomenon without much else. The film will build to a moral crescendo you do not care for; the fate of a love affair hanging delicately on the precipice you do not feel for and a limp attack on shopping networks as well as materialism you oddly cannot root for, Holy Man fizzling out with some nice ideas and bizarrely would-be theological content into a bit of a mess which does not particularly resonate.