A Thousand Words

★★★    B

Directed by: Brian Robbins

Written by: Steve Koren

Eddie Murphy: Jack McCall

Clark Duke: Aaron Wiseberger
Cliff Curtis: Dr. Sinja
Kerry Washington: Caroline McCall

A Thousand Words is a charming little tale of a business high-up named Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) who is the best of the best in the world of publishing. However, while he is the stereotypical business man in a lot of ways, he doesn’t lack emotion. He is still semi-empathetic and the punishment that he endures seems far too dramatic for what he has done. But that’s not a down-point. It’s nice. It allows us to enter the story on his side. Unlike most of these story’s the director and writer (and by extension, Murphy) did not have the obnoxious task of forcing us to like him. We already did and it made it far easier to get into.
Murphy is also amazing. So far, he is by far the leader for the best acting of any 2012 film I’ve seen (however, I have yet to see “Being Flynn”). Why is Murphy so good…for the same reason Jean Dujardin won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role: he’s silent. They made Murphy look amazing (he was also showcased recently in Tower Heist (2011)) .And unlike The Artist, the rest of the world isn’t and there are no dialogue cards to flash to the audience and the curse – which makes a leaf fall off the tree every time he says a word – includes writing too, so much of the movie acts as a game of charades. There is a reason people don’t always win at that game. Murphy always does. Much of the cast fulfills their job…like Kerry Washington and Cliff Curtis. However, comedic veterans (as young as they may be) Clark Duke (of Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) and Kick-Ass (2010)) gives what is probably is best performance, and the always hilarious Jack McBrayer (of 30Rock( 2006) and Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)) makes us remember his performance which is saying something as it had no real importance or even 5 minutes of screen time (Granted, I am an ardent 30Rock fan).
This is not probably not winning any Oscars (even though it probably is the most charming film so far of 2012), but guess what…? Its not trying to. You can tell that’s not really on their mind. This movie revolves around a silly plot and trees that just pop out of the ground. Why am I not siding with Roger Ebert and calling it crap? …Because I enjoyed it. Whether or not it has a storyline that is cool and innovative is irrelevant. It told a story and I had fun. That’s it. You can sorta do that in comedy. Now, if this was a drama, the inconsitancies and plot holes would drive me nuts but here, I could care less. It was very fun and had a nice little message. That’s all it set out to do and so, one must judge it accordingly. It did EXACTLY what the creators wanted. They made Murphy look amazing (he was also showcased recently in Tower Heist (2011))