Part courtroom standoff, part dude-returns-home-to-small-town tale and part familial dramedy, The Judge juggles its components in pleasant enough fashion to warrant a low-expectation recommendation. Pleasingly, the two Roberts (Downey Jr. and Duvall) who top the cast list and square off as father and son bring their acting A games, with Duvall in particular helping coax Downey Jr. out of his usual glib comfort zone – though this over-exposed facet of the latter’s personality comes in handy as a brash, show-off, unscrupulous defence attorney.
Director David Dobkin’s most successful film to date has beenWedding Crashers, which doesn’t hint at what’s on offer here, not that his terrible, more recent fare (Fred Claus, The Change-Up) does either. One would have to look back to 1998’s underrated Clay Pigeons to get a sense of how he can blend comedy and drama, although The Judge doesn’t go to the blackly comic depths of that Coen-ish effort. Dobkin weaves a natural humour throughout proceedings, the unrushed results demonstrating a seldom-seen knack for a natural, emotionally anchored story.
Even as The Judge piles on familiar elements – abandoned high school sweetheart; storm timed for maximum emotional catharsis; skeletons in the family closet; even a stereotypically guileless intellectually handicapped brother called upon for a few laughs (while thankfully never going “full retard”) – little feels over-egged, besides the plausibility-stretching conclusion to the father/son courtroom narrative.
While the supporting cast (Billy Bob Thornton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vera Farmiga) shoulder their share of the load without hogging the spotlight, this is Downey Jr. and Duvall’s film, and Dobkin has helped deliver some of their strongest work in years.
