''Holy Man'' is a 1998 American
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
satirical comedy-drama film directed by
Stephen Herek, written by
Tom Schulman
Thomas H. Schulman (born October 20, 1951) is an American screenwriter best known for his semi-autobiographical screenplay ''Dead Poets Society'' based on his time at the Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA), a college-preparatory day school located i ...
, and starring
Eddie Murphy,
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (; born October 22, 1952) is an American actor and musician. He has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of his era, such as ''Jurassic Park'' (1993) and ''Independence Day'' (1996), as well as their sequels.
...
,
Kelly Preston
Kelly Kamalelehua Smith (October 13, 1962 – July 12, 2020), known professionally as Kelly Preston, was an American actress. She appeared in more than 60 television and film productions, including '' Mischief'' (1985), '' Twins'' (1988), ...
,
Robert Loggia
Salvatore "Robert" Loggia ( , ; January 3, 1930 – December 4, 2015) was an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for '' Jagged Edge'' (1985) and won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for ...
,
Jon Cryer
Jonathan Niven Cryer (born April 16, 1965) is an American actor, writer, director and producer. Born into a show business family, he made his motion picture debut as a teenage photographer in the 1984 romantic comedy ''No Small Affair''; his bre ...
, and
Eric McCormack
Eric James McCormack (born April 18, 1963) is a Canadian-American actor and singer, known for his roles as Will Truman in the NBC sitcom ''Will & Grace'', Grant MacLaren in Netflix's ''Travelers'' and Dr. Daniel Pierce in the TNT crime drama ...
. The film was a critical and commercial failure.
Plot
Ricky Hayman and Kate Newell work at the Good Buy Shopping Network, a
home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Buy.com and Amazon.com, as well as ...
channel run by John McBainbridge. Sales have been down over the last two years under Ricky's management, and Kate was brought in to come up with new ideas.
Ricky views Kate as a threat and she expresses her dislike for him as well. However, John has given Ricky an ultimatum to increase sales, or lose his job. While out driving one day, Ricky and Kate come across a
charisma
Charisma () is a personal quality of presence or charm that compels its subjects.
Scholars in sociology, political science, psychology, and management reserve the term for a type of leadership seen as extraordinary; in these fields, the term "ch ...
tic strange man who calls himself "G". G is unusual in that he wears white robes and is perpetually happy and smiling. He seems to sense how troubled Ricky is, and follows them back to the Good Buy studio.
G wanders onto the set of an
infomercial, and while he is on the air, the number of calls with customers wanting to buy something increases. Kate notices this and gets G his own spot on the network selling items. Meanwhile, the mutual dislike between Ricky and Kate fades and they begin to express romantic interest in each other.
G's infomercials are mostly spontaneous anecdotes or thoughts about life, but customers connect with him and even the slowest moving items begin selling out. While staying at Ricky's house, he encounters a party of businessmen and displays his talents by making a
Rolex
Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...
watch "disappear" and curing a man of his fear of flying. Ricky begins marketing G's name on other items to increase sales. He wants to give G his own show, but the stressful work environment and throngs of fans who want to meet G begin to take its toll.
G is no longer the happy, inspiring man he once was, and when Kate tries to convince John to let G leave the network, he refuses and she quits out of contempt. Ricky reaps the benefits of the increased sales, receiving a large promotion and a new office. However, the rewards seem hollow due to G's lethargy and Kate's rejection of him.
On the night of the premiere of G's new show, Ricky searches himself and decides that letting G go is the right choice. He announces his decision live on air to the studio audience and to his boss. Kate hears of his decision and forgives Ricky, racing back to the studio to be with him. They have a romantic reunion on the air, and the show is ended. Afterwards, Ricky and Kate say their goodbyes to the fully recovered G, who wanders off into the distance to continue his pilgrimage.
Cast
*
Eddie Murphy as G
*
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (; born October 22, 1952) is an American actor and musician. He has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of his era, such as ''Jurassic Park'' (1993) and ''Independence Day'' (1996), as well as their sequels.
...
as Ricky Hayman
*
Kelly Preston
Kelly Kamalelehua Smith (October 13, 1962 – July 12, 2020), known professionally as Kelly Preston, was an American actress. She appeared in more than 60 television and film productions, including '' Mischief'' (1985), '' Twins'' (1988), ...
as Kate Newell
*
Robert Loggia
Salvatore "Robert" Loggia ( , ; January 3, 1930 – December 4, 2015) was an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for '' Jagged Edge'' (1985) and won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for ...
as John McBainbridge
*
Jon Cryer
Jonathan Niven Cryer (born April 16, 1965) is an American actor, writer, director and producer. Born into a show business family, he made his motion picture debut as a teenage photographer in the 1984 romantic comedy ''No Small Affair''; his bre ...
as Barry
*
Eric McCormack
Eric James McCormack (born April 18, 1963) is a Canadian-American actor and singer, known for his roles as Will Truman in the NBC sitcom ''Will & Grace'', Grant MacLaren in Netflix's ''Travelers'' and Dr. Daniel Pierce in the TNT crime drama ...
as Scott Hawkes
*
Jennifer Bini Taylor as Hot Tub Girl
*
Adriana Cataño as Television hostess
*
Eugene Levy as Guy on background television (uncredited)
Morgan Fairchild
Morgan Fairchild (born Patsy Ann McClenny; February 3, 1950) is an American actress. She began acting in the early 1970s and has had roles in several television series since.
Fairchild began her career on the CBS daytime soap opera ''Search for T ...
,
Betty White
Betty Marion White (January 17, 1922December 31, 2021) was an American actress and comedian. A pioneer of Golden Age of Television, early television, with a television career spanning almost seven decades, White was noted for her vast work i ...
,
Florence Henderson
Florence Agnes Henderson (February 14, 1934 – November 24, 2016) was an American actress. With a career spanning six decades, she is best known for her starring role as Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom ''The Brady Bunch''. Henderson also appeare ...
,
James Brown,
Soupy Sales
Milton Supman (January 8, 1926 – October 22, 2009), known professionally as Soupy Sales, was an American comedian, actor, radio-television personality, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television serie ...
,
Dan Marino,
Willard Scott
Willard Herman Scott Jr. (March 7, 1934 – September 4, 2021) was an American weather presenter, radio and television personality, actor, narrator, clown, comedian, and author, whose broadcast career spanned 68 years, 65 years with the NBC br ...
, Nick Santa Maria and
Nino Cerruti
Nino Cerruti (25 September 1930 – 15 January 2022) was an Italian businessman and stylist.
He founded his own haute couture house, Cerruti, in 1967 in Paris. He managed the Italian family business ''Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti'', which was fou ...
appear as themselves.
Production
According to
Splitsider
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'' ...
,
John Candy
John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian actor and comedian known mainly for his work in Hollywood films. Candy rose to fame in the 1970s as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its '' SCTV'' seri ...
was signed on for the role played by Murphy back in 1993, a year before the former's death.
Murphy turned down the lead role that eventually went to
Chris Tucker
Christopher Tucker (born August 31, 1971) is an American actor and comedian. Tucker made his debut in 1992 as a stand-up performer on the HBO comedy series '' Def Comedy Jam'', where he frequently appeared on the show during the 1990s. He ap ...
in ''
Rush Hour'' to star in this film instead.
Reception
Box office
''Holy Man'' was a
major box office failure, as it grossed $12,069,719 in North America, compared to its budget of over $60 million.
[ The film was released in the ]United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
on February 19, 1999, and only opened on #8.
Critical response
''Holy Man'' received largely negative reviews, with criticism aimed at the script and acting. Based on 50 reviews collected by the film review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, 12% of critics gave ''Holy Man'' a positive review, with an average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...
rating of 3.8/10. Its consensus states: "Cloying and unfunny, ''Holy Man'' wastes the repartee between Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum on the gospel of toothless satire and unearned sentimentality." On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score out of 100, the film has a score of 41 based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'' gave it 2 out of 4 stars, calling Murphy's character "an uninteresting enigma" and criticizing the film for being too credulous and missing opportunities for satire. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.
In June 2009, Murphy referred to ''Holy Man'' as a "horrendous movie". Although he did not identify the film by name, he mentioned it on ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'' is an American late-night talk show that featured Conan O'Brien as host from June 1, 2009, to January 22, 2010, as part of NBC's ''Tonight Show'' franchise. O'Brien had previously hosted NBC's ''Late N ...
'' as a reference to the film he starred in featuring a cameo with singer James Brown. In November 2011, on '' Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'', Murphy outright called ''Holy Man'' a horrendous movie, though he later backtracked and said, "It's not ''that'' bad, but it's pretty bad."
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Holy Man
1998 films
1990s English-language films
1998 comedy-drama films
American comedy-drama films
Films scored by Alan Silvestri
American buddy films
Films directed by Stephen Herek
Films produced by Roger Birnbaum
Films set in Miami
Films shot in Miami
Caravan Pictures films
Touchstone Pictures films
1990s American films