Story needs to find flow

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2014)

It's 2005. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is looking for his next subject to write about. He discovers mentally ill Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) playing his broken violin. He befriends the homeless musician and begins to write about him as well as the homeless of LA. Nathaniel showed some skills as a child and concentrated on music and nothing else. He got as far as Juilliard but dropped out in his second year.
There are two good performances from two great actors. It's too bad there isn't something more compelling or that the story isn't told better. I wonder if Nathaniel's life story told straight up wouldn't be better. This is based on the real newspaper columns. Maybe there is too much Steve Lopez. The movie is more about him than Nathaniel. There is way too much about coyote urine which is marginally amusing at best. The story just needs to find that compelling flow.
The best part of the movie are the LA skid row scenes. The mass of mentally disturbed is quite shocking and seems like an unreal creation. That's something different at least.