Eddie Murphy’s career has roller-coasted throughout the past three decades, and A Thousand Words is another project that continues to undermine Murphy’s comedic and acting talent. This is Murphy’s third collaboration with director Brian Robbins – the first two collaborations were the failed movies Norbit andMeet Dave. A Thousand Words is no exception to Robbins’ and Murphy’s collaboration – it has a choppy screenplay, barely any character development, and attempts to portray a deep life lesson in a very unrealistic and formulaic way.
 Murphy portrays Jack McCall, an arrogant and self-centered agent. His greatest pride is that he’s able to talk anyone into doing what he wants, including his over-worked and nerdy assistant (Clark Duke), and his wife (Kerry Washington), who is trying to get Jack to focus on their family and toddler son rather than work and his bachelor pad of a house. Obsessed with the fact, Jack thinks he is the best agent – although he doesn’t read any of his client’s manuscripts or books – and his newest work project is to have the internationally known spiritual guru, Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis), have his five-page book about the meaning of life published.When Jack visits Dr. Sinja in his meditation garden, he cuts himself on a tree which then soon magically sprouts up in his backyard. He learns that for every word he speaks, a leaf falls off the tree, and when all the leaves have fallen off, Jack will die. Dr. Sinja goes on a business trip to Bolivia and attempts to seek answers for Jack so he can live. While Dr. Sinja is in Bolivia, Jack is frantically trying to live without speaking. Throughout those three days, Jack manages to lose his job and ruin his marriage, and almost all the leaves fall off the tree after a drunken night of self-loathing. When he wakes up the next morning and realizes there are probably less than 25 leaves left on the tree, he finally reads Dr. Sinja’s book and has to face his life-decisions.

While they are some few and far between genuinely funny moments, the screenplay attempts but fails to develop any audience-actor connection. There is a small sub-plot with Jack’s Alzheimer-stricken mother that would be heart-felt if more character development with his mother occurred earlier in the film. While there is a poorly written moral to the story – actions speak louder than words – the movie is poorly written and yet another attempt for Murphy to try to re-strengthen his career. A three for three on lackluster films, it’s time for Murphy to end his collaboration with Robbins.



Rated PG-13 for language and sexual content