Review: ‘The Judge’ From The Editor

“The Judge” can be formulaic, improbable, melodramatic and bloated. But it emphasizes its stars’ strengths, which go a long way when your leads are Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall.

They play characters that fit long-held on-screen personae: Downey is Hank Palmer, a cocky big-city lawyer quick with a flippant witticism. Duvall is his father, Joseph Palmer, a small-town Indiana judge who’s gruff and firm, but fair. Nothing new there, at least in concept, and although the film pits them against each other via long-held familial dysfunction – a more accurate title might be “The Grudge” – director David Dobkin gives them the freedom to occasionally defy our expectations of such characterizations.

Just put Robert Downey Jr . and Robert Duvall in a room together and you’ll have a movie, a truism that “The Judge” does its damnedest to disprove.

David Dobkin’s film doesn’t leave a melodramatic stone unturned, adding to its courtroom drama a sentimental tsunami of story lines: a mother’s funeral, a father-son reckoning, a fight with cancer, a dash of alcoholism, a custody battle, a mentally challenged younger brother, and a hint of possible incest, to boot. Objection! Badgering the moviegoer.

But for a moment, the big-budget sheen of “The Judge” and its contrived, kitchen-sink emotionality is forgotten. Downey’s big-city, high-priced lawyer, Hank Palmer , helps his ailing father, Duvall’s Judge Joseph Palmer , in an excrement-soiled bathroom, pulling him into the shower while they both struggle for an excuse to keep Hank’s young daughter outside.

Even with the scene’s gratuitous realism, it’s the one natural moment in the otherwise schematic “The Judge.” As it is, the considerable appeal of seeing two fine actors as perfectly opposite each other like Duvall and Downey — one a rigid old cowboy, the other a manic pinball — is limited by the film’s ceaseless heart string-pulling. This is a movie that uses Bon Iver’s mawkish “Holocene” — the cheapest of ploys — not once, but twice.

The plot proceeds predictably from there, mixing the usual serious and comedic tropes of many a coming-home and courtroom drama before it. Its revelations are not surprises. Dobkin, however, allows character to drive the plot, even though some of the smaller roles are underdeveloped – the brothers especially, and D’Onofrio flails as if woefully under-directed.

A subplot involving Hank’s former girlfriend (Vera Farmiga) feels tacked on, as if the focus group hoped to counter the male-dominated cast with a dash of femininity. Playing the prosecuting attorney, Billy Bob Thornton is given about 30 seconds of screen time to do something other than look intimidating while seated at a mahogany courtroom bench, and we all know that’s a disappointing waste of his talents.

Still, for the most part, Duvall – who hasn’t had this strong of a role in a decade – and Downey make the most of their moments, both over- and understated. Joseph shows some cracks in his Mount Rushmore façade, and Hank sees in them an opportunity to mend their relationship rather than drive the wedge deeper. Despite the cutting pair of performances at its heart, the film is mostly warm milk, familiar ties-that-bind fodder, but we’ve certainly sat through less interesting familial therapy sessions than “The Judge.”

The Judge
Overall Metacritic rating (1-100): 47
Rotten Tomatoes: 50 percent

Rated: R
Length: 142 minutes
Starring Robert Downey Jr, Robert Duvall, Billy Bob Thornton, Vera Farmiga
Directed by David Dobkin
Distributor: Warner Bros.