Squandered Potential

Rating: 7/10 (25 April 2009)

This movie could have been magnificent. It could have soared, could have portrayed the shattering tragedy that is the epidemic of homelessness and abject poverty of the inner cities, and it could have equally conveyed the conflictual relationship between the comparatively well-off but shallow everyman reporter and his beautifully flawed subject.
But it didn't, and it wasn't. Despite extraordinary musical sequences, a touching and accurate performance by Foxx and some very creative camera work, it feels forced, shallow and bitter. The directing was glamorous and sappy, and the film seems to fawn on itself and it's own significance even as it drowns in hopelessness, confusion and despair. The only real saving grace of the movie aside from Jamie Foxx's acting is the all-too-brief sequences showing what life as one of the forgotten members of society is really like -- the junkies and crazies, abandoned to subsist in filth and squalor on the hideous underbelly of Los Angeles. That, the film did well. And only that.
Downey, usually electric and charismatic on-screen, is completely unlikeable and frantic as Steve Lopez, a wayward reporter thirsting for a good story. I realize I may garner a great deal of dissent from his powerful fan-base, but I found his portrayal to be inconsistent, cynical and (most distractingly) incredibly strange -- scenes which should have been emotional and riveting are sadly hilarious with Downey's bizarre facial expressions and eccentric mannerisms. His way of speaking is so peculiar he's at times difficult to understand; his reactions so uncalled for and inappropriate it's difficult to imagine anyone, even a homeless schizophrenic, being desperate enough for his treacherous and self- centered "friendship". His nervous energy and off-key interactions become increasingly painful to watch as the movie becomes steadily more serious, and the only emotion in the entire film he manages to summon are weepy doe-eyes that feel obviously manipulative and an utterly besotted, love-struck, soppy smile that he sends Foxx's way in a feeble imitation of what was in real life a touching heterosexual male relationship. He fluctuates rapidly between what appears to be an ardent, homo-erotic adoration of Foxx to a vicious, whiny rejection. Downey's is one of the most unsympathetic performances I've seen in a long, long while.
Foxx, conversely, portrays to near perfection the anguish and innocence of a disabling mental illness. His character is a homeless, schizophrenic former Juilliard musician who wanders the streets of LA with his shabby violin and constant self-narration. His acting is haunting and real, and what may oft be misinterpreted as aloofness on Foxx's part is in fact a realistic portrayal of the flatness of schizophrenics. It's faintly ridiculous to see such talent as Jamie Foxx paired with such shallow madness as Robert Downey Jr.
Overall, the film becomes an unwittingly parallel to the man it set out to portray -- like Nathaniel Anthony Ayers himself, it started out with remarkable potential and deteriorated into an aimless entanglement of its former merits.
A tragic fable, indeed.