Imagine That (2009)

If my reaction is any indication, Imagine That may be offensive to those with concerns for racial stereotypes and child abuse. (At various times and to my 11-year-old viewing companion, I was growling or murmuring "This is so wrong...") However, everything tidily works out in the last five minutes in a sugar-coated happy ending -- so that makes it all OK ... doesn't it? Eddie Murphy in Imagine That is Michael Douglas in Wall Street meets Adam Sandler in Bedtime Stories. (Are you worried yet?) Stock trading is a high-octane, dog-eat-dog world; Murphy is high-octane and can buff it up with the best -- but can the man who once played Dr. Doolittle put the bicuspids to a canine (even metaphorically)? He's just too nice -- OK, smarmy. He's also daddy to a wonderful little girl. (OK, now get ready to be afraid.) Yara Shahidi is the true star of Imagine That; she is pitch-perfect in every scene. However, the script has this 6-year-old dependent on her bedroom blanket (her "goo-gah"), screaming shrilly when separated from it, and speaking to four imaginary friends and a dragon -- who of course give her stock investment tips! (OK, now be very afraid.) Thomas Haden Church plays a Native American stockbroker who's gone native; his unorthodox boardroom style is all chants and drumming and vision-quest gibberish that wins over clients by sheer momentum of his alpha-male posturing (or, as he puts it, "It's just a thing"). (OK, now be extremely afraid.) Murphy goes over the top to regain his boardroom equilibrium by performing outright minstrelsy -- bug-eyed shuck-and-jive. I suppose if anyone can do it today, Murphy can -- but it is appalling esp. since there is no point. (OK, now experience shock and awe.) In the feeding frenzy of a do-or-die competition to not just keep their jobs but to inherit control of the investment firm, each man perpetrates indignities upon their children that border on child abuse: Church cranks his kid up on Red Bull while Murphy breaks into a house, creeps into a room full of sleeping little girls, and steals their blankets (before inducing a confrontational scene that's traumatic for all and wildly screaming "I want my goo-gah!"). You wouldn't think there's any excuse for such pap and circumstance but the script half-redeems itself by means of any scene with a mature adult named Martin Sheen in it, followed by a sugar-sweet family-time finale. By compromise, just barely 3 stars.