A man is only as good as his word. If only that applied to Eddie Murphy when he promised to stop making crappy movies. Did he ever make that promise? Maybe he didn’t. But he should have. “A Thousand Words” is yet another attempt for Murphy to use his fast talking, cheesy grin charm that used to work back before he sold his soul. Unfortunately funny Eddie Murphy has gone bye-bye.
In “A Thousand Words”, Murphy plays Jack McCall, a slick talking literary agent who will say anything to get what he wants. All he is does is fill everyone around him full of crap, including his family, co-workers and friends. Well, he doesn’t have any real friends, cuz, you know, he’s always filling everyone full of crap. So Jack wants to get a book deal done with a self help guru named Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis).
Obviously, Sinja knows Jack is full of it. He agrees to a book deal but his promise has some fine print. The day after the deal, Jack wakes up with a huge tree in his back yard, the same tree he cut himself on at Dr. Sinja’s pad. It turns out that there are roughly a thousand leaves on this tree and for every word Jack says, the tree loses a leaf. When the tree runs out of leaves…it’s all over for Jack, unless he learns his lesson.
Eddie Murphy used to be funny before he devoted his career to silly kids’ movies. Not that there is anything wrong with making comedies aimed at children, it’s just that Murphy was funnier when he was a little more, well, raw, for lack of a better word. He comes out throwing curse words around left and right in this and in a way it just seems like he’s trying too hard to be the old Eddie Murphy we loved in “Beverly Hills Cop” and “48 Hours”.
Sure, there is a lesson to be learned here, to choose your words carefully and words can hurt those you love and like I said earlier, a man is only as good as his word but it gets lost in Murphy going off on rants that are nothing more than an excuse for him to yell, as if that’s enough to be funny.
“A Thousand Words” isn’t a bad movie, it’s just not particularly good either. Eddie Murphy might be better off doing something completely career changing. How interesting would it be to see him in a Tarantino movie? Whatever he does, he better do it fast, or he’s going to be remember for being a talking jackass…and that’s only kind of a “Shrek” reference.
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