



The Judge is there to remind everyone just how remarkable a screen talent he can be: Slipping seamlessly from low-key moroseness to a harsh bark, it feels like Duvall has been slowly building up to this performance for years, an incredible culmination of an age spent in lacklustre roles just waiting for the right time to give everything he has. While Downey Jr. spends the preliminary thirty minutes re-treading the Tony Stark shtick for which he is now world-renowned, he slowly but surely grows into the role and by the finale has become utterly believable. Robert Duvall has seen a noticeable drop in decent roles since the glory days of the seventies and eighties butis there to remind everyone just how remarkable a screen talent he can be: Slipping seamlessly from low-key moroseness to a harsh bark, it feels like Duvall has been slowly building up to this performance for years, an incredible culmination of an age spent in lacklustre roles just waiting for the right time to give everything he has. While Downey Jr. spends the preliminary thirty minutes re-treading the Tony Stark shtick for which he is now world-renowned, he slowly but surely grows into the role and by the finale has become utterly believable.









Perhaps the most involving element of the film is also the most problematic: there is a shift partway through the film where we discover that Joseph is in the midst of a destructive illness, and in a moment of real emotional resonance, he becomes reliant on Hank – the son who has detested him for many years – to help him beyond the proceedings of the court case. It’s a refreshingly honest moment that for some may be difficult to watch, but is all the more admirable for it. What a shame it is then, that moments like these are so often juxtaposed by sequences of sugary, saccharine predictability that threaten to drag the picture down.





The more unfortunate side effect of this clashing tone is that the running time is stretched to a ludicrous one-hundred and forty minutes, which – combined with the dashing of schmaltz – brings to mind an image of the director eyeing up an Academy Award. By the time you reach the final hour your brain has gone with it but you’ve probably lost the feeling in your lower back. It feels even more astonishing that the film feels so languorous considering that (thankfully) it doesn’t feel the need to stop every five minutes and explain the courtroom jargon to the audience.





Luckily, there are a number of much better-handled elements throughout that distract from the dragging run-time, predominantly the likeable yet understated score by Thomas Newman, and a performance of ‘The Scientist’ by Willie Nelson brings the right level of melancholy as the credits roll. There is also much to admire in the cinematography, the deep shadows and harsh lighting bringing to mind the sensibility of a noir piece, and I for one would argue that the movie may even work altogether better in monochrome.





The Judge from slipping into the realms of over-hyped and uninteresting Oscar bait. Duvall has never been better, and Downey Jr. is slowly extending his forte beyond wisecracking. There’s predictability and schmaltz in spades, but so handsomely mounted and involving is the drama that it won’t be denied. While many moments have the ‘for your consideration’ feel to them, the massively watchable performances preventfrom slipping into the realms of over-hyped and uninteresting Oscar bait. Duvall has never been better, and Downey Jr. is slowly extending his forte beyond wisecracking. There’s predictability and schmaltz in spades, but so handsomely mounted and involving is the drama that it won’t be denied.





3 stars

In a drastic change from his previous work, director David Dobkin takes the helm of, a courtroom drama featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall as estranged father and son. High-flying lawyer Hank Palmer (Downey Jr.) returns home to attend his mother’s funeral when things take a sudden turn for the worse as his father and town judge Joseph (Duvall) is arrested for murder. Realising that his father’s own lawyer isn’t up to the job, Hank begins constructing the case for his father’s innocence while attempting to reconcile past family turmoil.