On Rotten Tomatoes – the American review aggregator website – A Thousand Words has earned a 0 per cent rating (the percentage of critics who have given the film a positive review), based on 41 reviews. Few films have previously sunk that low – examples being Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio and Heather Graham’s sex flop Killing Me Softly…

Michael Phillips in the LA Times wrote: “In A Thousand Words the camera stays about two inches from Murphy’s hyperactive face, and you start to see the strain and desperation in the actor’s eyes. Without saying a word, those reaction shots — the film is a 100-minute reaction shot unto itself – says: I am in trouble here, yet I remain a big bad wolf of comedy. I will huff and puff and get a laugh. Somehow.”