The Soloist

At last, after waiting for a long time, after almost each week I desperately became quite an annoying person for the dvd store people, asked the same question over and over again, "Is The Soloist availabe yet?", after once a week I googled the download link. Finally!

Steve Lopez, an LA Times journalist is running out of ideas for his weekly article, when suddenly he met Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless, playing a two-string violin. Steve is instinctively interested in Nathaniel who turns out to be a Schizophrenic also. For his article, Steve tries to approach Nathaniel which ended up in friendship.

This two-hours duration film, apparently failed to fulfill my personal-long time-expectation. The drama itself, I have no idea why, is kinda...flat, with no emotional roller coaster. The story is very much focused on Nathaniel's Schizophrenia and how Steve fought to approach and understand Nathaniel. The only entertainment here is Steve's funny scenes (Downey is so smart!).

Just to be honest, besides the anxious and desperation to see Downey's performance, I was hoping to see how genius Nathaniel or The Soloist himself, or at least his extraordinary cello ability. Well, automatically, I did not feel the importance of Nathaniel that has to be fought by Steve.

On the other hand, IMHO, Downey's performance is way better than Foxx's (always Downey ;p). Not as good as his performance in Tropic Thunder, but he's still good tho, above his own average. Foxx is not so bad himself, but for some reasons, I feel that Foxx didn't deliver something special with Nathaniel's character.

Oya, btw, Downey is also the narrator in this film (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang all over again). I always admire his style in reading narration, very lively and funny! His speaking style is an entertainment for me (I'm so a Downey defender ;p).

Satisfaction Rate: 68%
Downey Rate: 87%