(Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)"The Judge," starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Robert Duvall is, well, a thing. It exists. It's in theaters right now for your viewing pleasure.
Wait, that's wrong. Let me try again.
"The Judge" is a dramedy with — no, wait, that's a word used for crap sitcom television. It's a comedy with dramatic elements. Wait, maybe it's a drama with comedic elements?
Look, I'll be frank with you, I'm not sure what "The Judge" is. And I get the suspicion that it doesn't know either.
The film stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Hank Palmer, hotshot defense lawyer with a knack for closing cases against the bad guys with style and snark. His demeanor belies the fact that his marriage is falling apart, despite having a good relationship with his daughter, Lauren. This father-daughter relationship is broken down by Hank Palmer's soon-to-be-ex. She asks him, one question right after the other, "What's her favorite color? Who's her best friend? What's the name of her teacher?"
There's a reason why we only see her once in the whole movie.
When Hank gets word that his mother has passed, he flies to his childhood home in Indiana for the funeral, and meets up with his estranged family — older brother Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio), younger brother Dale (Jeremy Strong) and father and titular town judge Joseph (Robert Duvall). Just as Hank is about to return home post-funeral, he's called back to defend his father against a possible murder charge.
While the movie isn't overwrought with clichés, there are enough there to dull the experience. Hank's strained relationship with pops (he calls him 'Judge' instead of Dad) contrasts with brother Glen doing his best to keep the two from tearing each other to shreds. Dale is the good soul trying to make sense of it all (despite his mental handicap), and Joseph as the ornery old man with a stubborn heart of gold. Then there's the high school sweetheart/love interest Samantha, played by Vera Farmiga. Her daughter Carla may or may not be Hank's. Trust me, that wasn't much of a spoiler.
As stated earlier, the film doesn't know what to do with itself, courtesy of a messy script. It's at its best as when it's funny, a notion supported by Hank's wit and ability to be a lovable jerk. Dale's own innocent one-liners add to and assist the more laughable moments of the film. It even does a good job with the warm and fuzzy, as scenes with home movies and Hank's precocious daughter feel believable.
Those bits, however, are quickly stopped dead by dramatic turns of shouting matches between characters, who come off as unable to talk without a little bass in their voices. Calm moments go south quickly, as arguments needlessly spring from nowhere in brash attempts to ground the story further than necessary. On the flipside, drama-filled scenes are halted with humor that, while funny, makes no sense when presented and further confuses whatever goal the movie is trying to reach genre-wise.
It's disappointing, as the opposite personalities of Joseph and Hank show glimmers of greatness before being quashed by corny acting that is groan-worthy each time. Vincent D'Onofrio's overacting make the poor guy look like he's suffering from an upset stomach.
The subplots, ranging from a car accident to "Who's Carla's father?”, are for the most part introduced and solved in the same style as above, with solutions introduced and forgotten almost instantly.
The courtroom scenes give the film some necessary breathing room in the midst of the drama, to the point where, frankly, I never wanted them to end. Though Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thornton) teleports into the court with almost no introduction, his steely role as prosecutor is a decent adversary against Hank. Even if the overall battle was framed similarly to (insert courtroom drama show here), save for a fun analysis of the jury, the cheesy acting was, thankfully, left at the door, giving a believable weight to the fight at hand and giving reasons to actually care about what could come next.
"The Judge" is not a terrible movie, but it is one that doesn't know what it wants to be. While it does well with comedy, only a few sparks of enjoyment can be found in the drama it keeps crashing into (and vice-versa), if you can muster past the shouting, screaming and Vincent D'Onofrio's presumed ulcer.
It's a case of great actors plodding through a poor script while trying to make the most of what they have, therefore leaving something behind that could have been better. It's worth a watch to see these guys together onscreen, but nowhere near fantastic enough to keep in your collection. In short: It's here, it exists and it's simply, well, a thing that you can watch.
Reach the reporter at Damion.Julien-Rohman@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @legendpenguin
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