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Reviews Counted:38
Fresh:24
Rotten:14
Average Rating:6/10
Consensus: Though it features strong performances by its lead players, a lack of narrative focus prevents The Soloist from hitting its mark.
Theatrical Release:Apr 24, 2009 Wide
Box Office: $31,670,931
Synopsis: Director Joe Wright (ATONEMENT, PRIDE & PREJUDICE) brings the true story of an unlikely friendship to life in THE SOLOIST. An award-winning columnist with the Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez (Robert... [More]
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Catherine Keener, Tom Hollander
Director: Joe Wright
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In the hands of a director more suited to the material The Soloist might have been a deeply moving experience. Here, we know something important is being played out before us, and there are times when it hits home with force. But in their exercise of dram
Top CriticTthis is a maudlin, stereotypical story that never moved at all.
Top CriticThe film’s biggest problem lies really in its pacing. Every time the plot takes an interesting turn or moves forward, it’s stalled by one musical montage after another.
Top CriticA failed and problematic Oscar hopeful being dumped in theaters a week before the start of Hollywood's summer season.
Top CriticThe movie still entertains -- thanks to Downey's staccato rhythms and Foxx's secret melodies. But it remains flawed.
Top CriticBacked by his newfound A-list stardom, Downey brings to the project a wry swagger -- crucial in an essentially reactive role. I wish, though, that "The Soloist" hadn't spent so much time dealing with Lopez's crises of conscience and career, even as they r
Top CriticIt took guts. And I suspect there’s no sense in making a cautious film about Nathaniel Ayers.
Top CriticIt's a journey full of good intentions, but also some dubious decisions.
Top CriticMr. 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.
Top CriticIn the end, The Soloist is about how unknowable other people really are -- an idea that's terrifying until you step back and see the wonder of it.
Top CriticThe Soloist foregoes easy solutions, and even more importantly, it foregoes any easy sense of friendship.
Top CriticPerceptive [and] deeply engaging.
Top CriticWhile the film is unable to resolve its central subject, its background portrayal of the ongoing dissolution of the newspaper industry -- captured in a few fleeting images of layoffs and downsizing -- is vividly realized.
Top CriticFor all its sensitivity to the horrors of mental illness, The Soloist ends up as a fairly canned piece of work.
Top CriticA deeply empathetic exploration of mental illness and a winning showcase for the talents of its two stars, Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx.
Top CriticA movie about an improbable friendship set against the backdrop of urban and cultural decay, The Soloist strives for deep meaning and settles for gritty reality.
Top Critic[Director Joe Wright's] treatment of the material is so literal that at times the film seems like a syllabus for Remedial Cinematic Technique 101.
Top CriticWhile the narrative occasionally falters, The Soloist wisely avoids the pitfalls of the inspirational biopic by not tidily sewing things up. Instead, it presents a moving tribute to friendship and the power of music.
Top CriticHollywood loves the heroics of good intentions, but this is that rare movie that is just as interested in the road to hell.
Top CriticThe film is imperfect, periodically if unsurprisingly sentimental, overly tidy and often very moving.
Top Critic
April 23, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Fighting Is Down For The Count
This week at the movies, weve got bare-knuckle bouts (Fighting, starring Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard), the wonders of nature (Earth, narrated by James Earl Jones), a... More...
April 23, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Don't You Dare Mess with Beyoncé's Man
The environment needs saving so Hollywood is doing its part to go green by opening recycled versions of Fatal Attraction and Fight Club in hopes of attracting young adults. In a... More...
April 21, 2009:
Five Favorite Films with Director Joe Wright
Earlier this decade, Joe Wright directed two very English movies from two very English novels, both which had the fortune of achieving international crossover appeal. 2005's... More...
April 20, 2009:
Jamie Foxx riveting as schizophrenic savant in his best role since Ray. 
More...
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