A THOUSAND WORDS

He was so hilarious... long ago

title: A THOUSAND WORDS
year: 2012
cast: Eddie Murphy
rating: *1/2

Eddie Murphy’s back in form. Not to the grand days of TRADING PLACES and BEVERLY HILLS COP but the petrified 1990’s when he seemed to have lost his funny bone. Although the story is somewhat intriguing: a talkative, shallow agent acquires a tree where, with every word he speaks, a leaf falls – and he has only a thousand words until his inevitable death when the tree is bare. But this seems peripheral to Murphy’s annoying co-stars including a hen pecking wife and Clark Duke as Murphy’s personal assistant. Looking fifteen years old and trying way too hard for laughs, Duke makes particular scenes, where Murphy can’t speak in fear of losing all his leaves, not only unfunny but each drags on forever. One brief montage, as Murphy desperately attempts breaking the spell by becoming charitable, tries hard to revive the plot device yet nothing, including frantic attempts to mime each word, really works. Although a doomed Murphy displays worthy acting as he runs out of time and makes amends. But by the very end you’ll want to quickly leave the theater.