The Judge — Blue Fairy Film Blog

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Team Downey, and Big Kid Pictures

It’s difficult to understand what the filmmakers were going for when they made this film: is it an intense familial drama about a son coming home? Is it a comedy about a sarcastic, frustrated man dealing with his overbearing father? It’s tough to pin down the tone of this film, as it shifts between jokes about incest, to a scene where a son must clean off his father, who has defecated on himself. While many films have been able to blend together two separate genres and tones, this is not one of them. This film is completely haphazard in its approach to its subject matter, owing to the fact that this film only garnered a single Oscar nomination.

That’s not to say that Robert Duvall wasn’t amazing in his turn as Judge Palmer. As always Duvall captures the immediate attention of the audience whenever he is onscreen. In the last decade Duvall has taken more and more roles as the craggy old man who can’t listen and won’t understand his younger cohorts. (“Kicking and Screaming,” “Get Low,” “Secondhand Lions” etc.) This performance isn’t much different than past ones, in that it is brilliant, understated, and shrewd. Duvall gives a challenging performance, one that encapsulates the struggle of a man faced with illness, grief, and his own mortality, but finding that pride and honor are more important.

Without Duvall this is a somewhat shallow, clichéd, bombastic tale of a forgotten son (Downey) trying to find clarity between the man from his past, and the one sitting before him in the present. Robert Downey Jr. is a fine actor, one who has been iconoclastic for the past twenty years. His performance, like every performance in this film, is good, but not phenomenal. Even heavyweights like D’Onofrio and Farmiga are given very little to work with in terms of direction or script. In short: some interesting performances, but nothing spectacular.

The story strays constantly from that of an older man accused of a crime he can’t remember, and into gentle humor and human interest. There are side characters and flashbacks, unneeded expository dialogue, and scenes that have no bearing on the rest of the plot. The entire film is about forty five minutes too long, and delves into familiar territory more than once. There’s an entire side story where Hank Palmer thinks his old girlfriend’s daughter is his daughter as well, lending to a creepy brand of humor. There’s expository dialogue explaining the past, where we learn about the rift between Hank and his father, a car accident that maims his brother, and an old ruling by Judge Palmer, which has led to him being incriminated in a murder.

While the film itself isn’t terrible, and stays at least partially entertaining throughout, it’s not worth praise, attention, or awards. It’s a film that will be forgotten in several years (or already has been forgotten). Looking at the other nominees, J.K. Simmons deservedly won his Oscar. Duvall gave his all, but his performance was not as original and claustrophobically alien as his fellow nominee (Simmons). What I have learned from this film, through it all, is that even the most unoriginal films can have original elements.