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Average User Score: 7 (8 sources)

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The Soloist is a great movie. It involves a reporter Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) meeting a homeless, mentally ill, but musically brilliant man named Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) and writing about him in his column. Along the way, though, he...
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The Soloist is a great movie. It involves a reporter Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) meeting a homeless, mentally ill, but musically brilliant man named Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx) and writing about him in his column. Along the way, though, he wants more than to write about this musical genius- he wants to help him. Nathaniel, though, didn't really want help, he just wanted to keep playing music in the streets. The movie has a very strong story with some intense and emotional moments, and it all works together very nicely for the story. It's based off a true story too.

What really makes The Soloist a great movie is the story coupled with the acting of Downey and Foxx. The two did a pretty incredible, believable acting job, and both of them were very much in character. The acting is really what makes this movie a great movie; the plot is what makes it a good story.

The Soloist depicts the places where many homeless people in LA (I think it is) live very realistically. They do a great job of making the movie realistic by showing these parts, and revealing to the viewers that there is a whole world of people living with very little out there.

Overall, The Soloist is a really great movie. If you can handle some intense moments, I recommend you see it. It does a fine job of being realistic, telling a great story, and delivering it with some solid acting. Score: 8.5/10

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Posted may 30, 2009 7:25 am pt

• [+] Salon.com
  
  90
  A triumphant movie about failure.

  by Stephanie Zacharek | Read Full Review »
• [+] Wall Street Journal
  
  80
  Mr. Wright and his colleagues have made a movie with a spaciousness of its own, a brave willingness to explore such mysteries of the mind and heart as the torture that madness can inflict, and the rapture that music can confer. Bravo to all concerned.

  by Joe Morgenstern | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Hollywood Reporter
  
  80
  Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx are on fire in the lead roles: They're both charismatic as hell without sacrificing any of the emotional honesty necessary for you to believe that these movie stars are a scruffy reporter and a mentally ill musician.

  by Kirk Honeycutt | Read Full Review »
• [+] Charlotte Observer
  
  75
  The Soloist does have the courage to be true to the real Ayers' fate at last, after the exaggerations end. And the smart, hard-working Foxx and Downey ensure that their scenes all stay grittily honest.

  by Lawrence Toppman | Read Full Review »
• [+] Miami Herald
  
  75
  Downey gives a nervy, riveting performance in The Soloist.

  by Connie Ogle | Read Full Review »
• [+] Boston Globe
  
  75
  Isn't so much a story of perseverance and musical triumph as it is of despair, acceptance, and social commitment. The movie's a call to arms: We are our brothers' keepers, it says, and our brothers are in terrible shape.

  by Ty Burr | Read Full Review »
• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  75
  It's all a bit shapeless, yet made with sincerity and taste, and the two actors seize your sympathy.

  by Owen Gleiberman | Read Full Review »
• [+] Premiere
  
  75
  The Soloist is based upon a true story, so it lacks some of the clichés that you might find in other made-up tales.

  by Rob Calvert | Read Full Review »
• [+] Rolling Stone
  
  75
  In the end, The Soloist isn't about BIG MOMENTS, it's about the grace notes, the kind that stay with you.

  by Peter Travers | Read Full Review »
• [+] USA Today
  
  75
  Catherine Keener is also believable and sympathetic as Lopez's editor and former wife. But the film's power comes down to the strength of the two superb lead performances.

  by Claudia Puig | Read Full Review »
• [+] Baltimore Sun
  
  75
  Foxx is magnificent, taking a role that could be exorbitantly showy (actors playing the mentally disabled tend to forget the word "restraint") and turning in a performance that's controlled and mesmerizing.

  by Chris Kaltenbach | Read Full Review »
• [+] TV Guide
  
  75
  This kind of movie quickly falls apart if the actors overplay the inherent sadness of the situation, and thankfully the stellar cast never makes that mistake.

  by Perry Seibert | Read Full Review »
• [+] Christian Science Monitor
  
  75
  The film works best when it focuses on the touching, crazymaking relationship between the two men.

  by Peter Rainer | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  70
  Hollywood loves the heroics of good intentions, but this movie is just as interested in the road to hell.

  by Ann Hornaday | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New Yorker
  
  70
  I don't know if Beethoven and a sympathetic newspaper reporter can redeem a messy American city, but this movie makes a plausible case for so fervent a dream.

  by David Denby | Read Full Review »