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The Soloist has everything it needs to be decent. A true story about a homeless musician and his relationship with an L.A. Times reporter, it’s the basic underdog-gets-a-break routine. We’ve all seen it before, most of us will keep paying to see it again.

It’s the second most overused plot in Hollywood, just behind the group-of-inner-city-kids-who-get-a-new-teacher-or-coach-who-at-first-doesn’t-fit-in-but-then-leads-them-on-to-great-things routine. These stories are completely predictable but, like a classic comedy routine, we (sometimes) don’t care that we know the ending because we (sometimes) enjoy the middle so much.

So before the opening scene, we already know that a homeless, mentally ill genius named Ayers is going to meet an L.A. Times reporter named Lopez, they’ll become friends, and in the end it’ll be the upper middle class Lopez who learns the true lessons of friendship and loyalty. When a story is this predictable, acting can be the difference between an Oscar nominee and a Lifetime Original Production.

Jamie Foxx already proved he can commit to a character (if you haven’t seen Ray, stop reading and go watch it now), and I wasn’t disappointed by his performance here. He becomes Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, balancing genius and illness on the fine line of tastefulness. Robert Downey Jr., on the other hand, is subtly perfect as Steve Lopez, an L.A. Times staff reporter whose fear of becoming obsolete drives him to find the perfect story. But I should be clear: the Soloist won’t be an Oscar nominee.

The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr.

This classic story supported by two solid performances was obscured by nearly every decision the director and screenwriter made.

Flashbacks, employed to tell the story of young Ayers, added almost no valuable information to the story. Ayers’s illness was signaled by the entrance of a chorus of random voices all repeating his full name, at some points being joined by visual effects that resembled the iTunes Visualizer. I wish someone would have told the director, Joe Wright, that on a giant screen, it’s enough to cause motion sickness and trigger epilepsy all at once. And I can’t forget to mention Steve Lopez’s horrible habit of getting covered in various types of urine.

It was these types of gags and misdirections that stepped in front of the story with a bullhorn and shouted in my face. When I wanted the front noise to die down so I could focus on Foxx and Downey doing their respective things, something would step up to say NATHANIEL ANTHONY AYERS IS MENTALLY ILL AND STEVE LOPEZ IS LEARNING ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND IF YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION HERE IS A JARRING STUNT SCENE TO MAKE YOU LOOK. (If you’re like me, even reading that sentence was torture. We don’t like to be shouted at.)

This sort of self-destruction reminds me of this restaurant in my neighborhood called Rocket to Venus. The food is good, the ingredients are mostly local, the beer selection is great, and the environment is completely obnoxious. For hipsters looking for a trendy place to stand around and be mad at the world, I guess it works, but you won’t see me there very often. I can’t enjoy an eating experience when I’m surrounded by horrendous attitudes. They seem to have thought of everything except their interaction with me, the customer. And like most things, it’s only as good as its weakest link.

The Soloist has the pieces of an above average drama, but its weakest link is in its interaction with us, the viewers. I give it 2/5 stars (or 32/100 on Criticker).

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