Review of The Soloist (2009) by Dyron W — 21 Jul 2014

With a brilliant story and brilliant actors, it could have been a brilliant film. instead, it was mediocre because the direction and screenplay were close to awful. I would have expected much, much more from joe wright, who directed pride and prejudice, my favourite movie ever, but I guess inspiration only strikes once.

The character of Steve Lopez (the journalist) wasn't developed at all and for half way through the movie his personal relationship was unclear. His scenes with Jamie Foxx were random and out of place.

None of the scenes advanced plot or character in any way, making the movie very dull and seemingly long. Lastly, the sound quality of this film was the worst I have ever heard, considering that it was made rather recently.

There was always background chatter, and the characters were mumbling for the majority of the film, making it hard to understand, and making it even less possible for anyone to be engaged in the story.

I think the film's biggest problem was that it talked about everything, but never showed anything. For example, downey's relationship with his ex-wife was only established because he explained to foxx, not because the audience saw it.

The film tried too hard to "look like reality", and in attempting to do so, lost all the charm and magic that makes people want to watch movies. Even if a movie is based on a true story, it still needed to be epic to be touching, and this film, sadly was not.