Excellent, a Must See

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

'Holy Smoke!' begins promisingly, steers wrong and eventually crumbles to dust. But because it features two of the best actors around giving some of the bravest acting that I have seen this is a movie that is hard to hate.Kate Winslet stars as Ruth, an Australian woman who went to India and fell under the spell of a cult guru. To illustrate the spell of the cult there is a wonderful scene the guru places a jewel on her forehead and it turns into a third eye. Ruth's family wants to pull her away from the cult and hires 'cult exiter' P.J. Waters (Harvey Keitel) to bring her to her senses. They fake a family illness to trick her into returning home where Waters takes her to a shack in the middle of nowhere to begin her program of deprogramming.After some quiet moments in which the two engage in a truly fascinating conversation about the meaning of beliefs the movie begins to lose it's way. I thought that this would be a movie about how P.J. uses his experience to break her down and how Ruth puts up the wall of her beliefs as a defense but it doesn't go that way.Waters begins to fall under Ruth's spell mentally and sexually. I could have handled that but it happens so quickly that there never seems to be any kind of power struggle. We are told that this is Keitel's 190th case but I was left to wonder how a man could be successful in 189 cases of deprogramming and fall for this young woman after only two days. The way Ruth brings P.J. under his spell its a wonder the guru didn't fall for her.Much as I hated the end of the movie I cannot dismiss it all together. Winslet and Keitel both give performances that are electrifying. Their sexual chemistry together had me longing for a better story, perhaps these two as an adulterous couple.Keitel has always been a risky actor, taking roles like 'Bad Lieutenant' that many actors would touch with a ten-foot pole. Kate Winslet is taking same track. She hasn't let her success in 'Titanic' be her easy ticket to a $10 million paycheck from Hollywood hot air turkeys like 'Charlie's Angels'. She has continued to seek out challenging roles in films like this and 'Hideous Kinky' and 'Quills'.'Holy Smoke!' is directed by Jane Campion and co-written by Campion and her sister Anna. Campion wrote a similar sexual struggle between Keitel and Holly Hunter in her 1993 masterpiece 'The Piano'. But in that film it was a struggle of personalities where this movie seems to be a matter over mind.

In "Holy Smoke",we are shown how affluent western world perceives India especially through its innumerable religions.Academy award nominee New Zealand director Jane Campion steers her film by showcasing a harum- scarum Australian family whose members make all possible attempts to persuade one of their ilk to disown an Indian religious sect leader.Her film is an attempt to unravel countless affable mysteries surrounding numerous Indian religious men and women and their emotional, intellectual or spiritual ramifications on prosperous westerners.Much of the film centers around a dysfunctional middle class Australian family which is facing tough times.Jane Campion errs occasionally as her film contains some less developed themes involving spiritual aspects versus material comfort and intricacies of mind over body.However,all serious viewers can vouchsafe a good viewing experience as perfect emotional as well as carnal chemistry between Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet is a joy to behold.A weak and an absolutely terrible ending are some of this film's major thorns.Holy Smoke:one of those rare films where audiences will have tough time to make out how and when a hunter becomes a hunted target ? Film critic/French translator/interpreter Lalit Rao wishes to make a brief yet necessary mention about some of his fiends involved with shooting of "Holy Smoke" in India : a) Famous theater activist Rajneesh Bisht (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, amateur theater group) and veteran media person Madame Uma Da Cunha.

"Deprogramming" has been one of the features of the counter-cult movement in USA, in the 1980s. The movie revolves around that subject, although seemingly dealing with sex and seduction. I found it rather well documented (despite some common place about the spiritual quest) and an eye opener for anyone with a manicheist vision on the subject. Both actors are doing a good job in bringing liveliness to a difficult subject. I found that too many viewers missed the point, and it might be that some background on the theme is necessary to catch the drift (the scene where Keitel has visions near the end is meaningless without understanding of the context).

I wanted to like Holy Smoke more than I did. There is a clear study in the film, a likable element about it that establishes one thing, develops that and then has the audacity to spin things around onto its head for our own amusement. The film isn't bad as much as it is a little misguided and inconsistent in tone; thus, a tad frustrating by the end. It would have been nice for the film not to have spilt out into a realm of comedy and not get so over-rawed by itself when it relies purely on the image of Harvey Keitel in a dress to get across feeling instead of developing what new level it's attempting to lever up onto.The film is principally a study of the power certain people or 'texts' can have over others, or those of a weaker, more naive, disposition. The one thing the film does tell us is that it can be anybody who falls for the charms or tricks of anybody else, even macho PJ Waters (Keitel) who is supposed to be this ego-driven; ever immune; hard-as-nails; 'never takes no for an answer' and 'nobody puts one over him' caricature. The film's other victim of texts or ideation's that have 'influenced' them to act in artificial ways is a certain Ruth Barron (Winslet), a simplistic and relatively likable Australian girl with a steady life and a family that is very fond of her.PJ exists in the film because of Ruth's inability to deal with the influence a certain Indian guru's image and ideas have on her. Ruth exists in the film to bring PJ into her life and furthermore influence him in both a spiritual and sexual sense. For the best part, the film looks at what affect certain texts and teachings can have on the young and outgoing plus whatever affect those attempting an anti-thesis on these beliefs can further suffer at the hands of their own patient. Unfortunately, the film cannot hold it all together and incorporates elements including, but not limited to: slapstick comedy; loose, sexy women as a drive for potential humour; well-known, female global stars in the nude for sake of hearsay as well as well known, male global stars dressed as women for a similar sake.The film begins with Ruth in India. Whilst there, she falls under the influence of a popular Indian guru at the tapping of a forehead and a staring into the eyes. Job done, it would seem. Following this, she becomes trapped in the mindsets and ways of life so much so, that her mother has to fly out in order to 'rescue' her. Ruth doesn't come home initially, but after some banter and some comedy revolving around what a supposed dump really India is, she returns to Oz. Once home, there is a particularly eerie scene in which members of her own family have gathered as one to subdue her, thus refraining her from escaping back to the 'evil' world of India with all their 'evil' influential practises that they do on young, Western women. Could have been worse; they could've conned her into giving away her credit card details as well.Hark, when there's something strange – and it don't look good, who are you going to call? Why, PJ Waters of course – a man listed somewhere in the phone-book under 'exorcist', I imagine. PJ is charged with ridding Ruth of these Hindu beliefs. I didn't think it would be so easy, otherwise we wouldn't have had a film, would we? I was expecting it to bed down and become a struggle of sexual politics as this gum chewing, snake skin boot wearing, shades wearing person, who's given all the build up he needs, went up against this young woman out to discover herself in the big, wide world. I was expecting a study of identities, a look at the role of one's self in contemporary Australia and how the Indian 'beliefs' perhaps elevated her to a new spiritual sense thus helping her see things the way she wanted.What we get is a bizarre passage of events. The 'exorcism' plays out and mutates into a sort of 'patient begins to become object of doctor's desire' relationship between the two that further aids in bringing out PJ Waters' feminine side, so to speak. I found it quite amusing at how female director Jane Campion turns the tables on us; how she presents the female of the piece as weak minded and foolish, while the male is the battle-weary, intellectual individual out to 'correct' the female before mixing it all up and turning it on its head. Alas, on the whole, Campion is more interested in shooting Winslet in an array of skimpy outfits (before Kietel gets a chance of his own); she is more interested in a young boy dressed as Batman jumping off a car roof and smacking into the ground as a guardian fails to catch him; she is more interested in the flirtatious attitudes of Yvone (Lee) to act as humour and when lines like "I'm sorry Ruth, I should never have slept with you." from PJ evoke guffaws more than anything else, you sort of realise things are not all well.There were some things I liked about Holy Smoke, but they aren't focused on enough for me to recommend it. Once Ruth becomes PJ's object of desire following a bizarre scene in a night club, the film falls apart somewhat and just becomes a slightly unconventional love story with very un-cinematic, and un-likable in equal measure, words like 'quirky' and 'kooky' being able to be attributed to it. The premise has been solved, we're heading off in new directions and the whole thing just fizzles out in a misery-strewn manner. Not a disaster, but not focused and even enough to be fond of.