A Thousand Words (2012)
Directed by Brian Robbins
Jack McCall is a fast-talking literary agent, who can close any deal, any time, any way. He has set his sights on New Age guru Dr. Sinja for his own selfish purposes. But Dr. Sinja is on to him, and Jack’s life comes unglued after a magical Bodhi tree mysteriously appears in his backyard. With every word Jack speaks, a leaf falls from the tree and he realizes that when the last leaf falls, both he and the tree are toast. Words have never failed Jack McCall, but now he’s got to stop talking and conjure up some outrageous ways to communicate or he’s a goner.
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But director Brian Robbins (who gave us "Norbit" and "The Shaggy Dog") constantly leaps between broad sitcom humor and deadly serious drama.
Directed by Brian Robbins — the auteur behind “Meet Dave,” “Norbit” and that Tim Allen mongrel “The Shaggy Dog” — the movie has no edge or wit.
The idea of Murphy, that famously motormouthed actor, suddenly tongue-tied is not a punchy enough punch line to carry a whole film, and Koren’s insubstantial comic set-pieces, perfunctorily staged by Murphy’s Norbit director Brian Robbins, overly rely on the audience’s fondness (mostly absent) for Murphy’s elastic-faced overemoting.
As it is, the movie is a misfire, which wastes Eddie Murphy’s talents (although not in such a way as the awful “Norbit”).
Scripted by Steve Koren (“Jack and Jill,” “Click”) and directed by Eddie Murphy’s all-too-frequent collaborator, Brian Robbins (“Norbit,” “Meet Dave”), this ostensibly inspirational fable about truly listening, saying meaningful things and treasuring life is fashioned like a Hallmark card.
In this latest opus from auteur Brian Robbins (Norbit), the one-time comedy king plays a philandering husband with a kid and a job as a fast-talking, prevaricating literary agent.
If A Thousand Words’ formula seems familiar, that’s because writer Steve Koren has tripped down this quasi-metaphysical path before in Bruce Almighty and Click.
He’d better make his peace with his lifestyle, his unhappy wife, his mom who has Alzheimer’s, played by Ruby Dee in a performance so real and heartfelt that she shakes the whole movie up around her. Screenwriter Steve Koren gave us “Bruce Almighty” and “Evan Almighty,” so he’s going to get the mystical/spiritual side of the movie right.
With a ridiculous plot that will make you long for the subtlety of “Liar, Liar” and “Bruce Almighty,” “A Thousand Words” tells the story of literary agent Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy), another fast-talking Hollywood creation.
The premise, similar to such Jim Carrey comedies as Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty (screenwriter Steve Koren also wrote Bruce Almighty), attempts to show the clown with a sensitive side.
Screenwriter Steve Koren gave us “Bruce Almighty” and “Evan Almighty,” so he’s going to get the mystical/spiritual side of the movie right.
The film, which is directed by Norbit's Brian Robbins and written by Bruce Almighty's Steve Koren, is being slung at audiences as a broad family laffer of the Jim Carrey school, but spends just as much time trying to be a serious tale about letting go of childhood resentments and accepting mortality.
If A Thousand Words’ formula seems familiar, that’s because writer Steve Koren has tripped down this quasi-metaphysical path before in Bruce Almighty and Click.
In the vein of "Click," which got into some ungodly life-affirming pathos in its protagonist's redemption, "A Thousand Words" features sequences in which McCall chases his younger self (seen in golden fields of grain) and learns to forgive the father who abandoned him, and to comfort his Alzheimer's -stricken mother ( Ruby Dee ).