A Thousand Words

Hopelessly underwhelming from start to finish, A Thousand Words follows fast-talking agent Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) as he’s forced to reevaluate his life after a mystical tree sprouts up in his backyard. Said tree, it turns out, loses a single leaf with every word spoken (or even written) by Jack, and, according to a New Age figure named Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis), Jack will die once the tree is completely bare. It’s a rather hokey premise that’s employed to pervasively unremarkable effect by director Brian Robbins, as the filmmaker has infused the proceedings with a relentlessly lightweight feel that prevents the viewer from working up any real interest in or sympathy for Jack’s situation – with the hands-off atmosphere compounded by an ongoing emphasis on jokes and gags of an unfunny, frequently desperate nature (eg Jack begins sweating profusely as the tree is watered, Jack’s wacky assistant begins talking “gangsta” to an important client, etc, etc). The sentimentality that comes to dominate the second half does, as a result, fare somewhat better than one might’ve expected, as such moments are, comparatively speaking, a mild improvement over the excessive silliness of the movie’s opening hour. But the complete and utter lack of subtlety within Steve Koren’s screenplay is ultimately nothing short of exasperating, and it’s finally impossible to label A Thousand Words as anything more than a hopelessly flat and thoroughly forgettable piece of work.

** out of ****