Big city lawyer Hank Palmer returns to his childhood home where his father, the town's judge, is suspected of murder. Hank sets out to discover the truth and, along the way, reconnects with his estranged family.
The Judge is directed by David Dobkin and stars Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall. It's cool to see Robert Downey Jr. in a role that doesn't involves him putting an iron suit on. This man has talent, he actually is an excellent actor, I recommend to check out some of his movies from the 90's to early 2000. Of course Robert Duvall was in To Kill a Mockingbird, he's a fantastic and iconic actor since for ever. This movie is exciting. Firstly I'm impressed; not only this film is funny but it's also very interesting, an almost two and a half hours movie and you are never bored. That's what I called Cinema. Though, there is nothing original about the story but it does focus a lot on hi characters. Plus, Robert Downey Jr. is excellent in this film; he steels every scene he's in and that's pretty the whole movie. As I said before, it's good to see him again playing an adult male character other than Iron Man, he's great as Iron Man but this actor can do serious adult drama movies and killed it as well. It reminds me of Zodiac. It's also great to have Robert Duvall back because for the past few years he was just a cool supporting actor showing up for few scenes and that's pretty much it; but here he's GOOD! Vincent D'Onofrio is terrific in the movie as well as Billy Bob Thornton who is the "bad" guy but he's just doing his job, he's underused. However, on the one hand there are some intense and powerful scenes between the two protagonists but in the other hand some are a bit cheesy and unrealistic. Everything involving the girl and her daughter in the movie could have been erased. It's evolving around this father and son emotion, you don't really need her. Vera Farmiga is a good actress but it won't miss something if they skip it, I would even say that this is a little irrelevant to the overall plot. Finally, I feel like there weren't enough of the court room scenes, that are my favorite ones; they keep showing those a bit boring and useless family drama dynamic argument when the main plot take place around this super interesting case.
Overall The Judge is an effective and well directed movie with performances that all are very good, the story is very interesting, showing family bonding and doing something good for the world as when you walk out of this movie, the only thing you want to do is call your father.
