The Soloist (2009)

Blah blah being homeless sucks blah. I hate preachy movies. The Soloist was preachy. Like a Counting Crows concert. I feel like it needed a “No homeless people were harmed during the making of this film” disclaimer at the end.

There was a somewhat solid relationship built between the two central characters. This relationship was interesting, at times endearing, and there was some major archage by the end. But there were far too many bells and whistles along the way that I had absolutely no interest in, including a major Fantasia moment where colored lights dance across the screen during a Beethoven piece. Thank you, but my iTunes has a visualizer and it works just fine.

There was also a great deal of time spent watching Robert Downey Jr. watch homeless people. Yes, it’s tragic. Yes, we could all do more to help. But a $60 million movie isn’t the place to convince me to donate my grocery money.

The movie was fine. Competent. Well acted. I love Joe Wright. But I’ll never care to see it again. For me, it was mostly one big shrug.

Oh - and it had a Jena Malone moment (boo) as well as some Nelsan Ellis (a.k.a. True Blood's Lafayette) screen time (yay!)