Robert Downey Jr, and Jamie Foxx team up here for a true story surrounding an L.A. times writer, George Lopez and talented, but homeless and suffering from schizophrenia Nathanial Ayers.
Lopez (Downey Jr) discovers Nathanial (Foxx) on the street where he is playing a 2 string violin. All Nathanial wants is to find the other 2 strings. Lopez ever on a quest for a story and with a deadline looming decides to write about this gifted musician. Over the course of the movie, the two become close, with the L.A. times writer eventually winning an award for his story. In between the awards and the closeness, Lopez organizes an audition and a gig per se, for Ayers, from which he subsequently runs away. From there there’s a strain put on their exploitative friendship and then the movie marches on to its predictable end.
Robert Downey Jr puts in a solid performance here as yet another journalist who Hollywood portrays as usual, down on their luck, disheveled and of course has an ex wife. Jamie Foxx puts in a performance that is just short of amazing with great range and scope and so much of his performance relies on the look in his eyes. So with two solid performances you would think the Soloist is one of the movies of the year.
Well a big no, unfortunately. Its not a bad movie, but I believe the problem lies in its direction predominately. With some fantastic performances from its actors, I’m afraid the director Joe Wright (who Is a decent director, Atonement for example) doesn’t keep this movie together at all. Some of the scenes are overly long with little or nothing happening in them. In fact many scenes could have had 10 seconds shaved off. The movie tries to be abstract at times and to be honest it doesn’t really flow at all. With a simple story and great performances this movie is too complexly shot, which is a pity as there is a brilliant movie trying to get out here, but in turn its only OK. The Soloist should make you feel warm and happy when it reaches its end, but instead your just left feeling cold and wondering what the hell just happened and how could this go wrong.
Lopez (Downey Jr) discovers Nathanial (Foxx) on the street where he is playing a 2 string violin. All Nathanial wants is to find the other 2 strings. Lopez ever on a quest for a story and with a deadline looming decides to write about this gifted musician. Over the course of the movie, the two become close, with the L.A. times writer eventually winning an award for his story. In between the awards and the closeness, Lopez organizes an audition and a gig per se, for Ayers, from which he subsequently runs away. From there there’s a strain put on their exploitative friendship and then the movie marches on to its predictable end.
Robert Downey Jr puts in a solid performance here as yet another journalist who Hollywood portrays as usual, down on their luck, disheveled and of course has an ex wife. Jamie Foxx puts in a performance that is just short of amazing with great range and scope and so much of his performance relies on the look in his eyes. So with two solid performances you would think the Soloist is one of the movies of the year.
Well a big no, unfortunately. Its not a bad movie, but I believe the problem lies in its direction predominately. With some fantastic performances from its actors, I’m afraid the director Joe Wright (who Is a decent director, Atonement for example) doesn’t keep this movie together at all. Some of the scenes are overly long with little or nothing happening in them. In fact many scenes could have had 10 seconds shaved off. The movie tries to be abstract at times and to be honest it doesn’t really flow at all. With a simple story and great performances this movie is too complexly shot, which is a pity as there is a brilliant movie trying to get out here, but in turn its only OK. The Soloist should make you feel warm and happy when it reaches its end, but instead your just left feeling cold and wondering what the hell just happened and how could this go wrong.
