Okay, this is a movie you HAVE to drop the $16 to see in the theatre. Not that it is a great movie. It isn't. Another 7 minutes of editing and it might have been. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. However, if any two acting performances ever deserved to be seen on the big screen, these are the two.

It is extremely rare you get one truly brilliant performance in a movie. With this movie you get two. As great as Frank Langella and Michael Sheen were in FROST/NIXON last year, Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. are better in this one. You have to go back at least as far as 1993's PHILADELPHIA with Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks to find two performances anywhere near this good.

Start with Foxx. He is so unbelievably good, so believable, as the homeless, schizophrenic musician Nathaniel Ayres, it is almost scary. Almost makes you worry about Foxx's mental health. Take any legendary performance you can think of; Burt Lancaster's ELMER GANTRY, Brando in STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE or THE GODFATHER, Newman in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF or COOL HAND LUKE, Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, Tom Hank's FORREST GUMP. Foxx's performance is their equal.

And Robert Downey Jr. is almost equally as good as LA Times columnist Steve Lopez. Downey Jr. hits every note on the scale of human emotion so perfectly, so believably, you feel like you are sitting on the barstool next to him while he tells his story.

The fact that this is a true story is both inspiring and disturbing at the same time. The friendship between Nathaniel Ayres and Steve Lopez is truly touching and inspiring. However, the street scenes of LA's skid row, the scene of the police brutally rounding up the homeless, and the very fact there are 100,000 homeless people in LA county, are depressing and disturbing.

Anyhow, if you appreciate truly great acting, you must see this movie!