THE SOLOIST

The trailer for “The Soloist” is better than the movie.
This is a movie you will want to like, but you won’t be able to recommend it, because it has a fatal flaw and that negative can’t be overcome. It is very difficult to have a real interest in the transformation of a character, without knowing anything substantial about that character’s past.
This film does not tell us or even give us a decent chance to guess what lead this character to “miss the boat” when he was handed a golden opportunity.
You see a character falling thru space, but that has no real meaning unless you have at least a clue as to whether the person jumped, was pushed or fell.
This film does not allow us any involvement in Jamie Foxx’s motivation for his collapse as a rational being, so we can’t appreciate what demons he is dealing with; what got him to his lowly state as a homeless genius.
Nelsan Ellis, as the homeless shelter director is the most interesting character in the story. The talents of the other actors are wasted on a poor script.
The failure of this movie has a lot in common with the failure of Will Smith's movie -
"SEVEN POUNDS," both scripts fail to tell the story in the most effective manner - which would be straight forward - in making things needlessly convoluted, the story is lost in the cracks and the audience knows "something is wrong with this picture."