Early in “The Judge,” Hank Palmer, a hotshot Chicago defense lawyer played by Robert Downey Jr.
with his usual fast-talking swagger, learns that his mother has died.
He packs a bag, says goodbye to his unfaithful wife and his adorable
daughter (Emma Tremblay), and jumps in his Ferrari.
He
drives only as far as the airport, however. Even though his
Rockwellesque hometown is in Indiana, just one state over, Hank decides
to fly rather than drive. Presumably to save time — something this long,
baggy, meandering film, directed by David Dobkin from a screenplay by
Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque, otherwise has very little interest in
doing.
Once
home, Hank rediscovers the family from which he’s been mostly estranged
and runs into a few other people too, all of them played by fine actors
encouraged to graze in a meadow overgrown with thickets of plot and
clumps of easy sentimentality. Hank is the middle brother in a trio,
flanked by Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio), a high school baseball star settled
into middle-aged disappointment, and Dale (Jeremy Strong), who has the
kind of mental disability encountered only in movies: He walks around
with a Super-8 camera, asking naïve questions that are alternately good
for a cute laugh and preternaturally wise. He is less a sibling than a
mascot.
The
patriarch of the Palmer brood is the title character and the only
reason to take an interest in this movie, since he is played by Robert
Duvall. Judge Palmer (even his sons call him that) does not represent
anything new for Mr. Duvall. He’s crusty, but with an occasional twinkle
in his eye and a well-hidden soft spot. He is, more precisely, a
collection of personality traits in search of a coherent character,
which Mr. Duvall, by dint of sheer professionalism, comes very close to
supplying.
What we know about the judge at the outset is that he was a domestic autocrat (a somewhat kinder version of the bad dad from “The Great Santini”)
who doted on his wife and has been sober for nearly three decades. On
the bench, he is stern but fair, tempering his reverence for the law
with a sense of humor and an occasional display of mercy. He and Hank
don’t get along, though the smart money will be on their eventual
reconciliation.
Eager to watch Robert, Huhh???
Stay tuned....!!!
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