DimeBrothers.com
Home of Bandana Man 

Movie Review: The Soloist - 5 Cents
Posted by: Mark Nichols

25 Aug 2009


I've been working a lot recently, even losing sleep in order to get stuff done for the job. So last Saturday night I thought would be a nice time to take a break, relax, and watch a movie.

 

Too bad I ended up watching The Soloist.


It was neither relaxing, nor what I would consider a "movie". Movies should be enjoyable on some level. Movies, especially dramas, should have development that makes you care about the characters. Movies should have [insert one more thing here to drive home the point]. Movies should blah blah blah blah.... And if you've stopped caring about reading this article, you are now feeling exactly what you'd feel if you were watching the movie! (And that means I'm a great writer because I've transported you to that magical land of movie putridity!)

 

The Soloist is about a journalist (Robert Downey Jr.) with the LA Times who writes articles about a schizophrenic homeless musician (Jamie Foxx). Neat idea for a storyline, but [spoiler alert] at no point does what we hope for actually occur - Foxx never ends up overcoming the problem or performing at a masterful level. The one or two redeeming qualities of this 117 minute treatise on wasting time occur at the end. Downey gets Foxx's movie sister to provide more support, and Downey's obsession with fixing Foxx's issues hits reality - that he can't really get him to change as quickly as he'd like, but that reinforcement such as treating him like an adult (shaking his hand when greeting him and using Mr. to address him) is a good way to get him moving in the right life direction.

 

Speaking of reinforcement, an experiment involving food pellets and electric shocks could not have done better to get me geared up to go back to work than watching this movie. I'd had enough "relaxing".

 

© 2009 Dime Brothers
Category: Movies    

Reader Comments:

Leave a Comment:

Name: 

Subject: 

Code: 

 

Message:  Bold Italics Underline Insert Hyperlink


Web Development by Steve Black