A Thousand Words (2012)

Directed by Brian Robbins. Starring Eddie Murphy, Clark Duke, Kerry Washington, Cliff Curtis, Ruby Dee, Allison Janney, Jack McBrayer, John Gatins, Lou Saliba. [PG-13]

A fast-talking, self-absorbed agent (Murphy) lands a deal to represent a popular spiritual guru (Curtis), but it comes at a cost—a magical Bodhi tree appears in the agent’s backyard, and every time that Murphy says a word, a leaf falls from its branches (and when all the leaves are gone, one presumes the agent is, too). A bad idea made worse by insipid writing, disinterested characterizations, and hardly anything to laugh at, even for those who find Murphy’s desperate physical comedy antics endearing. He has a wife (or is it just a girlfriend?) and a kid, but rather than waste a few of his precious “leaves” on explaining the situation, he does clumsy charades that leave them high and dry; even worse off is his assistant (Duke), who had elbow room to maneuver, but is so low-energy and bland that his only accomplishment is becoming the human equivalent of ungarnished Melba toast. Makes the disastrous decision to turn serious and (I kid you not) philosophical about the whole thing, all the while cheapening its own heavy-handed message by also having Murphy exhibit effects whenever someone acts upon the tree (e.g., when it’s sprayed with a hose, he starts sweating profusely). Considering who the hacky director was, and his track record with the star (Norbit, Meet Dave), it never had a chance, but at least its inability to inspire focus leaves the viewer with time to try and figure out how they’d “crack” the conundrum; for the record, I’d have seen if I could get away with flipping through a dictionary and pointing at words in order to construct crude sentence fragments. Filmed all the way back in 2008, as if any more “red alert” warnings were needed.

21/100