Movie review: The Judge

Robert Downey jnr and Robert Duvall in The Judge.

This might be the first drama in a while in which Robert Downey jnr is back in a real-world setting. He portrays a big-city A-list lawyer attempting to reconcile with his small-town judge father as the newly-widowed old man also becomes a murder accused whose case he must win.

But this is, if anything, more bogus than anything Downey's done in Avenger-land. Yes there are outbreaks of acting between the two leads and Downey gets to talk that talk of his - described as "hyper-verbal vocabulary vomit" by a supporting character.

But The Judge is a tonal shambles and a really long one at that.

That Duvall's character is charged in the aftermath of a hit and run is kind of appropriate because The Judge itself weaves all over. It's switching lanes between back-in-the-'ol-hometown comedy, dysfunctional family soap, courtroom drama, and, briefly, tornado movie - without indicating. You do want to shout: Who's driving this thing? Director-wise, that's seasoned light comedy guy David Dobkin.

He can't help do dumb comedy things - mostly involving bodily fluids though none of the fun ones - in a movie that involves some fairly grim topics: murder, grief, guilt, cancer, getting to first base with the twentysomething daughter you didn't know you had ... oh right, that last one is played as a joke. Ho ho.

A few good lines do leak out - "Everyone wants Atticus Finch till there's a dead hooker and a hot tub," is one. But even that seems to be saying, hey, look this smalltown movie court thing is so To Kill a Mockingbird , right? No, this is a courtroom thriller only for those who have never seen one before.

Yes Duvall does deliver yet another fine crusty coot playing the man his three sons call "Judge". He has plenty of scenes that remind that getting old isn't for sissies. But he and they seem to belong to a much better movie.

Downey's Hank is basically Downey playing a character carefully calibrated for audience sympathies - hey he's a smug jerk of a lawyer but he's a really good Dad to his loving young daughter. He's the black sheep of the family and the prodigal son. And so on.

He's pretty much a list of personality traits with a motormouth. He's a fake centre to an emotional fraud of a film.

At one point, he shares a scene with another character who has come down with the screaming shits. I almost went out in sympathy.

Verdict: Guilty of audience tampering

Cast: Robert Downey jnr Robert Duvall
Director: David Dobkin
Rating: M (offensive language)
Running time: 142 mins

- TimeOut