The Soloist

I can't speak for you, but I know I've seen a great movie when on the way home I can't get it out of my head. Any of many emotions is right there on the surface.

I wake up the next morning thinking about it. Scenes from what I've seen and heard haunt me for many days after the event. Intellectually, mentally, emotionally.

It never fails. At work, either or I or somebody else catches me wagging my head... me lost in thought. They ask: "Is everything OOOOkay? Are you alright?" Me trying to figure out a dadgum movie I just saw. I usually end up laughing at what the scene must look like.

A Beautiful Mind did that. Dark Knight did that. The Truman Show did that. Seven Pounds absolutely did that like few movies ever have.

The Soloist didn't do that. Looking back on it...

I think the movie makers were a bit unfocused as to what kind of movie they were hoping to make. Jamie's and Robert Downey's performances were excellent for sure--you sensed a human in genuine turmoil and a good soul tryna do the right thing--but what was the movie about, really?

The homeless? The mentally ill? And the problems mental illness creates for the ill, their families, or society at large? The dark side of Los Angeles? The good journalism can do? How to kill raccoons tearing up your yard?

There were a lot of parts here that didn't come together for me, and I woke up this morning with no ghosts from this movie. What's happening here is simply a literary exercise.

I don't know, but I have this nagging feeling that I saw a movie that coulda been great but fell way short.

My recommendation?

See Seven Pounds.