The Judge (2014 TIFF review)
Photo courtesy of TIFF
The Judge is well-made hokum. It’s filled with nice, small moments and big, phony ones, all of them delivered by a cast of total pros. The movie will stir your emotions, but more often it may utterly exasperate you. Part courtroom thriller, part father-son drama, part prodigal-son-returns character piece, this Robert Downey Jr. vehicle is, ultimately, an unabashed movie-movie, feigning realism when really it resides in a land of earnest, feel-good make-believe. Even if you end up liking The Judge, you may hate yourself later for falling for it.
The film represents a major change for director David Dobkin, who previously helmed R-rated comedies like Wedding Crashers and The Change-Up. For his latest, he’s made a movie that seems like it could have been adapted from a Scott Turow book, or one of those airport novels with tons of colorful characters, juicy moments and maybe a jerked tear or two.
Downey plays Hank, an almost comically stereotypical big-city Chicago lawyer who makes millions defending slime balls. Cocky and shameless, Hank is flying high when he receives word that his mother has died, prompting him to travel back to his small-town Indiana roots for the funeral. There, he reunites with his two brothers (Vincent D’Onofrio and Jeremy Stong) and his cantankerous father, Joseph, who has been a beloved judge in the community for over 40 years.
Unpretentious and decent where Hank is arrogant and disdainful of his Indiana childhood, Joseph is not happy to see his estranged son. Likewise, Hank wants to head back to Chicago as soon as possible, but his return trip is unexpectedly delayed when the judge is charged with vehicular manslaughter. Even more surprising, the victim is a man Joseph sent to prison for 20 years who has just gotten out. Joseph never liked the man, so was it an accident or premeditated? And is Joseph being truthful when he says he doesn’t remember the accident? These are the questions that plague Hank, who steps up to defend his father in court, despite the bad blood between them.
The Judge juggles several narrative balls—in addition, Hank is about ready to go through a painful divorce and discovers that his high school girlfriend (Vera Farmiga) is still living in his hometown—and also wants to shift tones, edging away from drama for the occasional punch line or romantic interlude. Little surprise, then, that the movie (written by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque) runs well over two hours, giving the myriad characters room to develop into individual personalities. (We also learn a significant amount about Hank’s two brothers, especially D’Onofrio’s once-great ballplayer whose destiny was thwarted by a dark incident from the past that will finally be addressed by Hank and Joseph.)