The verdict: Stay away from 'The Judge'
It seems an injustice, but riveting courtroom thrillers are increasingly rare at the movies.
Perhaps because viewers can watch such superbly crafted legal dramas on TV as The Good Wife, movies are lagging behind on this front.
Mired in red herrings and time-wasting sidebars, The Judge is a classic example of a second-rate courtroom drama (** out of four; rated R; opens in select cities Thursday night and nationwide on Friday).
It's well-acted, with some occasional moments of clever dialogue, but the story is plodding, predictable and tension-free. If the essential premise doesn't work, it doesn't matter what terrific actors are cast.
Clocking in at a hefty 2 hours, 22 minutes, the melodramatic film resorts to filler and extraneous sub-plots that undercut the story of an embittered son and his estranged father.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Hank Palmer, the hot-shot criminal-attorney son of irascible small-town judge Joseph Palmer, portrayed by Robert Duvall. No one plays ornery old cuss better than Duvall. But he's done it so often that his role feels overly familiar. Downey does acerbic wit with ease. Not surprisingly, the best scenes are between these two superb actors.
Hank has a successful law practice in Chicago, as well as a precocious daughter (Emma Tremblay) and a philandering wife. When he goes home to Carlinville, Ind., for the funeral of his mother, Hank endures the community's resentment for having left for the big city, as if no one ever had the temerity to do so before. His older brother Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio) had dreams of playing baseball and now runs a local store. His sweet younger brother Dale (Jeremy Strong) is cognitively impaired, but loves shooting Super 8 movies, paving the way for a gimmick used unconvincingly to depict a pivotal car accident involving his older brothers.
The self-righteous judge's dislike for his slick son has kept Hank from visiting. We later learn the full dimensions of the lifelong enmity between father and son, though it still doesn't ring terribly realistic.
Though it takes a while to get there, the story centers on a fatal car accident in which the increasingly forgetful judge has struck and killed a recent parolee. He winds up on trial for murder.
Hank had been planning to leave town after his mom's funeral, but his father's murder charge changes his plans.
From the moment it happens, the audience knows Hank will end up defending the curmudgeonly judge - even though the older man resists irrationally.
Due to bad plotting, there's essentially no mystery about what happened, though the film tries to create tension with hoary clichés including loud gasps in the courtroom and trumped-up revelations.
Most supporting parts feel incidental or forced. Vera Farmiga plays Samantha, Hank's high school girlfriend and the owner of a local diner. She brings her limited role more soulfulness than was likely in the script. But it's still not very compelling. A sub-plot involving her college-age daughter Carla (Leighton Meester) is unnecessarily queasy. Billy Bob Thorntonplays a silver-haired prosecutor who sneers his way through the trial.
Oddly, for a film aimed at adults, it includes gross-out moments worthy of kids' movies, such as repetitive scenes of vomiting outside the courthouse by an inept local attorney (Dax Shepard). Perhaps these were inevitable since the film was directed by David Dobkin who made the hilariously irreverent Wedding Crashers and the lowbrow comedy Mr. Woodcock.
However, one scene in which father and son deal with the indignities of old age is starkly moving.
The Judge had decisive potential. But a weak script, lack of subtlety and tonal inconsistencies impede what might have been a powerful family drama.
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