Solid Performances In a Weak Film

Rating: 6/10 (24 April 2009)

As I walked in and sat in a seat at my nearby movie theater waiting to watch The Soloist, I was hoping to get what the trailers seemed promise: a strong, character-driven story led by two talented actors ultimately amounting to a solid film. What I got was half of this. The Soloist does well with some of the material it has, but there are too many missteps throughout the film (especially in the first act) to make it anything above decent.
The film's plot is fairly basic. Robert Downey Jr. plays a writer for the Los Angeles Times (Steve Lopez) who comes across a homeless violin/ex-cello player (Nathaniel Ayers) with Jamie Foxx filling in the character's shoes. Lopez sees potential for Ayers to make a "comeback" so to speak and begins writing a column for him in the newspaper. Of course not everything works out so well and several debacles take place throughout the course of the film. All of this unfolds with some fairly haphazard approaches and mixed results.
What really hurts the film is many of the choices made to progress the plot and emphasize the characters. The scenes which show the viewer what happened to Nathaniel before he became homeless come of as either perfectly adequate or inconsistent. Many of the film's scenes involve multiple voices saying/repeating lines/words over and over which, quite frankly, do get annoying before long. It also feels rather odd having a good few dialogue exchanges occur with both or all of the characters talking at once. Whether this was intentional or not doesn't detract from it feeling unnecessary and taking the viewer out of the unfolding plot.
What does work in the film is the performances by the two lead actors. Downey Jr. does a great job playing a conflicted newspaper writer and he also takes part in a couple...nasty scenes that make for good, brief comedic moments. As for Foxx, he manages to do an equally, if not superior job fitting into his role and, unlike the film itself, barely has any hiccups during his performance. While both put on great performances, don't expect them to be in the running for the Oscars since they come just a slight nudge below excellence in their screen time. Part of this (mostly in Foxx's case) can be attributed to the questionable style of development as mentioned above. For the first half of the film it's tough to really care much about what happens but the second half does help even things out with stronger scenes. In regards to the supporting cast, most of them are negligible and, other than those who have more frequently occurrences (which granted aren't that many), barely stand out.
The Soloist is a film that had plenty of potential to be a precursor to the film releases over the summer. Unfortunately, the film lacks a proper sense of pacing and direction to make it realize this potential. Foxx and Downey Jr. put on two great performances and during some of their key scenes, it's far easier to get immersed in the film. However, the film itself doesn't fare nearly as well and misses the mark just too much to be worthy of a full recommendation.