"The Soloist" is a film that easily could have sucked, so it's almost shocking how good it actually turned out to be. I mean, just take the premise: calloused, professional journalist, used to filing his "human interest" stories and moving on, meets a funky, fuzzy-brained homeless dude who's also a musical genius, playing Beethoven on dodgy L.A. streets and tunnels. Imagine, say, Tom Hanks in the first role and Will Smith in the second, and really, you don't even need to see the film — the jokes and odd-couple bickering and heartwarming resolution are that predictable.

But lucky for us, we have Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role, and whatever that guy does, it sure isn't ever predictable. Opposite him is Jamie Foxx, an actor who isn't afraid to push it and look downright nasty at times, if that's what the character requires, as in "Dreamgirls" or "Ray." (Compare that to Smith, who can't even turn down the charm when he's being a jerk, as in "Hancock"). So what could have been a by-the-numbers Hollywood feelgood flick instead turns out to be something much more real and revealing.

You realize this the first time the camera trails down Skid Row near the Lamp Community Center, a gated homeless shelter with a halo of dealers, hustlers, shopping-cart people, and basic street crazies thronging around it — the air of impending danger, the abject sadness of disposed lives, the squalor of rough living: This is pure downtown America. I would bet good money that most of the people being filmed here, and in the shelter, aren't extras but actual street people. The disturbed woman who speaks of being off her meds — because they stop the voices in her head, and sometimes the voices are the only comfort she has — sure didn't sound like she was acting.