The Judge (2014) Directed by David Dobkin. Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga. IMDB says: “Big city lawyer Hank Palmer returns to his childhood home where his father, the town’s judge, is suspected of murder. Hank sets out to discover the truth and, along the way, reconnects with his estranged family.”
The Judge (directed by David Dobkin) is a good movie with great performances peppered throughout. What keeps it from being a great movie is all the excess story, plot, subplot, and characters. The Judge is the story of Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr. being Robert Downey Jr.) who returns to his hometown of Carlinville, Indiana to bury his mother. While he’s home, he reconnects with family and friends he’s been estranged from while working in Chicago as an assumed big lawyer in a big law firm. The Judge is also the story of Hank Palmer (RDJ) who returns to his hometown of Carlinville, Indiana to discover that his father, Judge Jospeh Palmer (Robert Duvall, who acts the shit out of this movie) is suspected of murder.
Those two stories are intertwined and stitched together with subplots of a failing marriage heading towards divorce, a reconnection with an old flame, a man reconnecting with his family, a man learning to be a better father, and a few “twists” for good measure. And with two and a half hours to play with, there is plenty of time, almost too much time, to cover all of it and then some. The problem is, some of these subplots go nowhere while the rest simply aren’t needed. At times it’s frustrating because you have this courtroom drama that is unfolding and just when it gets interesting, they cut away to the drama outside of the courtroom.
You could’ve split this movie into two separate films and while, yes, they would’ve seemed a bit cliché, they’d have been fantastic to watch with all the star power in this film. You’ve got Robert Downey Jr, Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Billy Bob Thorton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Ken Howard, and Grace Zabriskie. (I realize Grace isn’t the biggest name in the world, BUT it was just announced that Twin Peaks is coming back, so I have to give some love to Sarah Palmer). Seriously, the cast is great. I laughed, I rolled a tear or two, the whole nine yards, but they’re so spread out, you don’t get too much time with them to really see them develop. You can tell the actors try to break the surface and dig deep, but they end up hitting bullet points. The score is pretty forgettable and is just there to accent the feelings you should be feeling when it’s time to feel feelings. See it in theaters if you want, but honestly, you can wait until cable for this one.
