The Soloist

The Soloist was originally slated for release during last year’s awards season, with the film’s move into the spring bringing with it rumors of behind-the-scenes problems and internal strife within the studio. It’s become clear, however, that the movie’s release was most likely shifted for the simple fact that it’s just not very good, despite the best efforts of director Joe Wright and a uniformly superb cast. The film casts Robert Downey Jr. as Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles-based journalist who stumbles upon the story of his career after discovering a Juilliard-trained musician (Jamie Foxx’s Nathaniel Ayers) living on the streets. Wright, working from a script by Susannah Grant, certainly tries his hardest to elevate the proceedings with the inventive visuals he’s come to be known for, and yet it does become awfully difficult to overlook the increasingly stagnant nature of the movie’s storyline (ie the bottom line is that there’s just not enough material here to sustain an almost two-hour running time). Foxx’s expectedly stirring performance is hindered by his inherently standoffish character, which ultimately does ensure that the viewer has virtually no rooting interest in Ayers’ ongoing success. And while it does initially seem as though the film will, at the very least, offer up an intriguing look at the running of a newspaper in the 21 st century, the inner workings of Lopez’s newsroom is quickly abandoned in favor of an emphasis on the character’s out-and-about attempts at profiling his subject’s admittedly perilous existence. The movie’s final attempts at tugging at the viewer’s heartstrings ultimately fall flat, and it’s consequently impossible to label The Soloist as anything more than a well-intentioned misfire.

** out of ****