Plot: A shrewd defense attorney (Robert Downey Jr.) returns home when his mom passes away, and his uneasy relationship with his father, a judge (Robert Duvall), is rekindled. After the funeral, the once honorable judge is involved in an accident and faces manslaughter charges. It’s up to his son to defend him, and all their demons from the past come to surface.
It was easy for me to check out of The Judge about two minutes into the film. When the movie begins with Robert Downey Jr’s character pissing on another lawyer, and then proceeds to make a bunch of wisecracks and quips at his expense, I pretty much sank into my chair. Here we go. Two and half hours of this. But to the film’s credit, it gets a lot better. While it has way too many subplots and exposition, this movie has it where it counts. Once Robert Downey Jr’s character (Hank Palmer) returns to his hometown and the real plot begins, it’s hard not to get invested in this story of a father and son reconnecting.
The movie is cluttered with back stories galore. This guy is connected to Robert Duvall. Downey dated this girl in high school. There’s a mentally inferior brother. People have cancer. The older brother lost his baseball career. Holy mother of overload, enough already. It’s as if the script was hell bent on giving Hank Palmer every single piece of emotional weight humanly possible. I wished the film stuck with two of these plot threads, because it would have been a lot stronger. The film is way too long as it is. The one element that does work though is the relationship between Downey and Duvall.
Robert Duvall easily gives the best performance in the film as Joseph Palmer, the father Hank has to defend. He’s a prideful, but ridiculously stubborn judge. Duvall does a great job of making this guy sympathetic, but you can also understand why there was a falling out between him and his son. This is definitely Downey’s best performance in a while. The snark is certainly still there, but it’s toned down. Downey plays a real person who’s not always on. He’s a jerk at times, but you definitely understand where he’s coming from and want to root for him. He and Duvall have a couple very powerful scenes that were tough to sit through, but both actors do a great job. You get your fill of shouting matches.
There’s no shortage of solid supporting roles either. Vincent D’Onofrio plays the older brother who has a pretty sad back story. D’Onofrio plays it perfectly. I’ve always been a fan of his, and hopefully he’ll get more work. Billy Bob Thornton is fantastic as another cutthroat lawyer who’s prosecuting Joseph. His first scene was a great way of introducing the character. You can never have enough Billy Bob Thornton. Vera Farmiga does a good job at playing Hank’s old girlfriend, and while it was nice to see Vera Farmiga, that relationship and subplot is pretty flat.
That’s ultimately the problem with this movie. While everything involving the trial and the father/son relationship is solid, it always has to jump to something else. The movie is completely scattered. I don’t even feel like you get very many scenes involving their case. The trial scenes are pretty good though. You get plenty of “objections” and “motion to strike” shenanigans, although the end of it gets way too schmaltzy and unfocused.
This movie pulls out all the clichés, the score is generic as hell, and it’s determined to pull all the heartstrings imaginable, right up until the very end. The scenes between Downey and Duvall make this worth a look, but I wish the film was able to get out of its own way so that stuff could have been stronger
Rating: 6.5 out of 10 (Slightly Better Than ‘Meh’)
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Daniel Cohen is the Film Editor for Pop-Break. Aside from reviews, Daniel does a weekly box office predictions column, and also contributes monthly Top Tens and Op-Ed’s on all things film. Daniel is a graduate of Bates College with a degree in English, and also studied Screenwriting at UCLA. He can also be read on www.movieshenanigans.com. His movie crush is Jessica Rabbit. Follow him on Twitter @dcohenwriter.
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