Heartwarming true story about a homeless man who makes nice music.

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 2009)

This movie has two of my favorite actors playing the two primary roles. So I would have found it interesting no matter what else it may have had. But I am also a musician, and fact-based stories about musicians always grab me and hold on.
Instead of a blockbuster movie this could well have simply been made into a documentary, using the real homeless musician and the real LA Times reporter who brought his situation to the attention of the rest of the world. Since they chose to make a movie with actors I suppose there is a fair amount of dramatization added to the bare facts. In a short DVD extra where the musician and the reporter speak, they each seem a lot more "normal" that was portrayed in the movie.
Still, I enjoyed it greatly. Jamie Foxx is Nathaniel Ayers, formerly in the 1970s at Juliard, but he left in his second year. He has become homeless, living where he can, and playing music on an old violin with only two strings.
Robert Downey Jr. is LA Times reporter Steve Lopez who appears to be running low on good story ideas. When he happens to encounter this man, playing a 2-stringed violin, he decides it would make a good story. At this point he had no care for the man, just for himself. However as he found out more, and got to know the man he began to take a more personal interest.
Good movie, and much more complex characters than it first seems. Foxx is superb, in another award-quality performance.