Check out my youtube review HERE!!!
The Judge is the first film from production company Team Downey which was founded by Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Downey (It feels wrong not putting Jr. at the end). This film is directed by David Dobkin who takes his first stab at drama after a career full of comedy films. The film features a cast which includes Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Billy Bob Thornton, Dax Shepard and David Krumholtz.
The film is about a father (Duvall) and a son (Downey Jr.) who must overcome their estranged relationship as the son represents his father in court regarding the death of a criminal the father put in jail twenty years ago and possibly killed upon his release. What follows is a movie full ofs all the courtroom drama and estranged family clichés we've seen before, a lot of unnecessary characters and sub-plots but still an overall decent movie.
Like I said there is too much going on in this movie; this wouldn't be a problem if we actually cared about what was going on but a lot of it is just manipulative smaltz which I really have not time for. It doesn't help that all this makes the movie two hours and twenty minutes long when it really should have been an hour and forty minutes. There is so much that could have been cut out of this movie especially on a scripting level but it's here to stay so I'll move on.
The cast is pretty solid though they're not really given much to do. Vera Farmiga is as lovely as always but doesn't get enough screen time, while Dax Shepard does a good job but his character is completely pointless and has no need to even be in the film. The film is well made with good cinematography, though I'm not really a fan of the lighting. The music is nice and overall the film is just that, nice.
But nice doesn't always get you places. The film just never really feels true to me, everything is done to manipulate you, whether it's the music, the back story or the dialogue. The film is nothing new, we've seen it before and it's not done well enough to compel me to watch it again. This is not at all a bad film but it's kind of bland and rather forgettable. I'm not at all bothered that I watched it but I don't think I'll be likely to watch it ever again.
3 out of 5 stars.
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