Holy Man

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Holy Man
Holy Man promotional poster
Directed by	Stephen Herek
Produced by	Ray Murphy Rebekah Rudd
Written by	Tom Schulman
Starring	Eddie Murphy Jeff Goldblum Kelly Preston
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Cinematography	Adrian Biddle
Editing by	Trudy Ship
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures
Release date(s)	October 9, 1998 (USA)
Running time	109 min.
Language	English/German/Spanish
IMDb profile

For other uses, see Holy man

Holy Man is a film produced in 1998 starring Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum and Kelly Preston. It was directed by Stephen Herek.

[edit] Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Ricky Hayman (played by Jeff Goldblum) is a sales executive for a television shopping channel. His sales figures are flat and his job is under threat. "G", played by Eddie Murphy, is a charismatic guru who treats everything positively, thanking passersby who throw drinks for "not using a can". When their paths cross by chance, G's non-materialist outlook at first annoys Ricky, but when G receives a spot on Ricky's show, Ricky re-examines his own outlook, and realizes that "his good is better, and his better is best".

There is a small montage sequence in the film at the point that G begins to become famous where leaders from three different religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) claim that G is of their faith. If the plot of the movie and its underlying concepts are carefully examined, you will find some distinctly eastern (particularly Buddhist) principles that form the basis of G's character and values.

The movie was initially considered a 'flop', however this was likely due to it being mistakenly marketed as a comedy and not as a family/drama film. There are funny moments (that if truth be told revolve more around Jeff Goldblum than Eddie Murphy) but the core of the story revolves around our moral decisions, the hedonistic nature of society and the influence of the modern day materialistic culture that thrives on making us believe we need to buy things we never really needed.