"What happens when all the leaves fall off?" celebrity guru Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis) asks Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) after a Bodhi tree has magically sprouted in Jack's backyard. "It dies?" Jack answers. Maybe Murphy is thinking of his recent flop-plagued career. 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. For his latest coup, Jack inks a dubious deal with Dr. Sinja in order to publish a book of the guru's "New Age spiritual crap." But back to the tree: with every word Jack speaks, it loses a leaf. And when the last one falls? Well, other than the movie mercifully ending, Jack will die. . . or learn a Lesson. Tellingly, McCall likes to brag that he need only read the first and last five pages of a book to decide if it's any good. Maybe Murphy should give future scripts a less cursory perusal.
