Thursday, August 6, 2009

Movie Review "The Soloist"

"The Soloist," with Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx

The Soloist is about a journalist who meets a homeless musician who is schizophrenic (hope I spelled it right). That's about it. It's slightly more complex then that, but that is the basic plot.

But that doesn't mean it isn't a good movie. It's very well done, though there is a few scenes that REALLY made the movie a little bit too long. But everyone does a good enough job in this. Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx do the best job, naturally. Foxx's character is so effed up that he brings a shopping cart filled with garbage everywhere, wears crazy looking clothes (that would make Tyra Banks scream), and generallly speaks very fast mumbling the whole time. And somehow creates a good character. What's funny is though they tried to center Jamie Foxx in this, it ends up being Robert Downey Jr. who gets more screen time. It's obvious that he was only in this because of the one-two punch of the (both very good movies by the way) "Iron Man" and "Tropic Thunder." But he does a really good job here too. But since the movie bombed (and since the scenes taking place at a homeless shelter in LA are both scary and accurate at the same time), they really should have called this "Even Iron Man Likes Homeless Folks." Because though this movie is very good, it's just whoring a series of LA Times articles by a guy who just was writing about his experiences with his homeless friend and how his life was approved by it. And hell, it IS a true story, although it's a true story where every character in it magically de-ages about 10 or 20 years. Because the real people Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx portray are both in their sixties at least. They do a good job, but they look too young.

But overall, it's a good movie, for those people who enjoy "real cinema." As dramas go, it's good, though a little messed up sometimes.

Score: 8/10

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