Movie Review: Holy Man (1998)

The movie stars Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum, Kelly Preston, Robert Loggia and Jon Cryer.

I came across this film on one of my movie channels early this morning before work and, mostly because it had been a while since I last watched it, ended up leaving it on while I was having breakfast.  As has been the case when I’ve watched this movie in the past, I ended up having a mixed opinion of it.

This movie, I honestly believe, is one of Murphy’s best performances. His character, G, is likable, funny and entertaining to watch and, while this movie doesn’t allow him to take advantage of the crude comedy that made him famous, it is still a step above some of the boring family-oriented characters he has played. And, if anything, he does make the movie watchable.

The overall film, however, does have some weaknesses. For one, the plot is kind of predictable. The second Ricky (Goldblum) and Kate (Preston) meet, it’s pretty obvious, even though they start out not liking each other, there was going to be some sort of romantic attachment between the two. And, the rest of the movie follows a pretty cliché pattern with expected ups and downs and not much in terms of uniqueness.

I also thought the film lost some momentum roughly halfway through. As I said, Murphy did a wonderful job. But, you can only see G so many times before his message becomes somewhat redundant. As a result, the movie starts out pretty decent and has an OK ending but everything in between that is kind of forgettable and seemed a lot like the writers were really just trying to find a way to make the movie longer.

Murphy does a pretty solid job but, unfortunately, the rest of the movie really doesn’t do enough to help him out. Basically, it’s worth taking the time to watch him. But, you could turn this movie off about halfway through, wouldn’t miss all that much and would probably figure out how it ends.

My Grade: C