Saturday, October 11, 2014

Film Review - The Judge (2014)

The Judge stars Robert Downey Jr as Hank Palmer, a hot shot Chicago Lawyer who returns to his small home town for the funeral of his mother Mary here he sees his brothers Glenn (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Dale (Jeremy Strong) plus his father Judge Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall) but soon this Judge is accused of Murder and Hank might have to help represent him in court.

The Judge is well okay, its neither a terrible movie but it's also a film that I found to be fairly forgettable after about a day or so and the main reason for that is that the film's script is very routine and by the book to coin that phrase for example:

- There's the big city boy going home
- The bitterness in the family
- The girl that got away
- The rival lawyer
- The courtroom showdown

And all of these elements sadly have been utilised better in other films apart from this one and as a result you start to see the genre tripes on display here.

But this film is not a complete write off and that is mainly due to the performances on show here, Downey is his usual charismatic devil may care self and it's always fun to watch him do it, Duvall is good here as is D'Onofrio, Vera Famiga and Billy Bob Thornton and all of them go a long way to lifting this very average script.

And so the jury will hand down its verdict, on the count of its performances they find the Judge not guilty but on the count of its script it finds the Judge guilty and as such it is sentenced to a 2 out of 5.

No comments: