clipped from: www.slate.com It seems awful to say this when Jamie Foxx worked so hard for this role—he even had his piano-key teeth chiseled to change their shape—but his generally fine performance as Ayers betrays moments of flashy Oscar-baiting, the kind of calculated uplift Ben Stiller satirized (with Robert Downey Jr.'s help) in Tropic Thunder. Playing our heartstrings like a busted violin, Foxx veers dangerously close to violating the acting law that Downey's character laid down in that movie: "Never go full retard."
