The Judge

Given its extreme overlength (141 minutes!), The Judge ultimately fares a whole lot better than one might’ve anticipated – with the movie benefiting substantially from its strong performances and stirring courtroom sequences. The narrative follows hot-shot lawyer Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr) as he returns home to his small town to attend his mother’s funeral, with the character’s short stay extended indefinitely after his cantankerous father (Robert Duvall’s Joseph) is charged with murder. It’s clear immediately that scripters Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque aren’t looking to reinvent the wheel here, as The Judge boasts some of the hoariest cliches that one could possibly have envisioned – with Hank’s steady transformation from cynical to kind certainly ranking high on the film’s list of eye-rollingly predictable elements. And yet there’s little doubt that filmmaker David Dobkin does an effective job of sustaining the viewer’s attention, with the sporadic peppering of legal elements throughout the proceedings going a long way towards keeping things interesting. The movie’s courtroom sequences are, in particular, an ongoing highlight here, as such moments have been infused with a nail-biting, unexpectedly engrossing feel that’s heightened by Billy Bob Thornton’s absolutely electrifying work as opposing counsel. But the movie’s rough-cut feel ensures that it drags in several spots throughout, with the final third, in particular, padded out to an almost unreasonable extent as Dobkin offers up a series of false, increasingly ineffective endings – which, naturally, confirms The Judge‘s place as an extremely erratic yet consistently watchable legal drama.

**1/2 out of ****