The Judge

Robert Duval shits himself in this movie. It’s a proper metaphor for the movie, not Duval's performance. But literally, you get to watch an actor of Duval’s stature and prominence, a man who has given us such towering performances as we’ve seen in The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, MASH (not to mention the lesser-known, but brilliant George Lucas film TXH 1138, which if you haven’t seen you should) shit himself on the screen and see it run down his leg and onto the floor. And that’s right after he’s vomited in the toilet because of his chemotherapy treatment. These actions are in-bounds contextually, but the images stick with me because of the movie as a whole. For good measure, Robert Downey Jr. and Dax Shepard also puke a few times during the film (just nerves). Downey Jr.'s character Hank Palmer also makes out with his niece. The film is in Indiana rather than Arkansas, but the cliché jokes might as well apply since the film is wrought with so many others from the courtroom (lack of) drama, to the strained father/son relationship and the bad boy come home to do good.

Downey Jr. is a powerful force on the screen in every film in which he appears. This film is no different. The problem is, there’s too much Downey Jr. and not enough of his character Hank Palmer. From the moments where he talks to himself or talks over people, pees on the shoes of a sloppy, fist-shaking rival prosecuting attorney or gives the Good Will Hunting-esque I’m so much smarter than you speech to the local rubes in the bar followed by the obligatory gasps and applause from the appreciative non-rube locals, not to mention the niece whom we are led to fear may actually be Palmer’s daughter that he dry humps at the end of the bar, Palmer, the character, is either cookie cut or otherwise generally uninteresting. His brothers, too, are an odd homage remix of Judge Reinhold and John Ashton from Beverly Hills Cop with a dash of pick your mentally challenged character and all that goes with him. To their credit, Dale Palmer (Jeremy Strong) and Glen Palmer (Vincent D’Onofrio) both have their moments, but they’re given bad dialogue and it’s not their story. It’s middle child Hank’s story and his journey is just not that interesting.   

If it sounds like you’ve seen this before (outside of Duval shitting himself on screen), you have. If it sounds like you’ve seen this done better before, too, you very likely have. There are small moments in the film that gave me hope of redemption. Samantha Powell (Vera Farmiga) has a few tender and funny moments with Hank as the girlfriend left behind. She has a enough strength and success in her to make the viewer cheer for her. Billy Bob Thornton plays his small role as Dwight Dickham, Hank’s prosecuting counterpart in (cue dramatic music) “The Trial” with strength, confidence and integrity.

I have loads of other criticisms, from the Director David Dobkin’s lazy and unfocussed storytelling and visual imagery (two hour and twenty-one minute running time!) to Janusz Kaminski’s flaccid cinematography (this is Spielberg’s right hand man and yet the screen is largely snooze-worthy) to Nick Schenk’s (et al, as there are four credited writers) corny, too often on-the-nose dialogue, but the simple takeaway is that this film is simply a hot mess – sort of like the shit Robert Duval takes on screen.

Resonance Rating: 1 out of 5