August Rush

A runaway orphan (Freddie Highmore) is a musical prodigy who masters any instrument the minute he sees it; he comes under the wing of a street musician (Robin Williams), and in days he’s the star pupil at Juilliard, rehearsing for a Central Park concert. Meanwhile, a social worker (Terrence Howard) is searching for the boy, and his birth parents, a cellist (Keri Russell) and a rock guitarist (Jonathan Rhys Myers) are searching for each other. Nick Castle, James V. Hart and Paul Castro’s script is a mix of ridiculous melodrama and maudlin kitsch, with ersatz-poetic dialogue that sounds more like a bad-haiku-writing contest than speech; the movie paraphrases Oliver Twist, but to say so slanders Dickens. How this reeking heap of hogwash ever got a green light (much less attracted so much talent) is a mystery.