By Caitlin Walsh, news staff
Going into “The Judge,” I expected to be moved.
“The Judge” secured all the ingredients for an Oscar contender: the writer behind Gran Torino (David Schenk), a director responsible for comedy powerhouses like Wedding Crashers and Shanghai Knights (David Dobkin) and seasoned, award-winning actors Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Billy Bob Thornton, Vera Farmiga and Vincent D’Onofrio.
From the first trailer, I expected a powerhouse. I expected grandeur.
To say I was disappointed would be a lie, but it was not what I had anticipated. Duvall and Downey were as spectacular as I hoped —largely attributed to the fact that they more or less play versions of themselves. Downey’s character, the protagonist Hank Palmer, is a slightly reformed but still morally questionable man — one who has been seeking the unobtainable approval of his father (Duvall). Throughout the movie, he makes the case that he was never truly the handful of trouble he was made out to be, and even after a stint in juvenile detention, he went on to college and Northwestern Law, where he graduated top of his class. Downey himself is familiar with the troubled-teen-turned-well-respected-superstar story.
Duvall, however, really stole the show. Playing the title character, Judge Joseph Palmer, he embraces the role with a natural ease and grace. He is a man who has dedicated his life to gaining the respect of his community — he believes his life is meaningless if he is not remembered as a man of high moral standing. The struggle between him and Hank is relatable, if not extremely frustrating — a broken relationship that they don’t know how to fix, and both parties aren’t entirely sure they want to. It’s, at its core, cliché — a story of a father and son getting to know each other, trying to find love long lost between them.
Billy Bob Thornton stands out as the attorney opposite Hank, who defends his father from a murder he isn’t sure he committed. Thornton is sly, slick and above all, professional. He is confident and collected in the courtroom scenes and stands out as villainously cool, above all else.
The supporting cast is not to be pushed aside, either. Vincent D’Onofrio is the older brother to Downey’s Hank, the one that was a beloved baseball star and the clear favorite of their father. Vera Farmiga plays Downey’s high school love, left behind when he never looked back. Leighton Meester makes a brief appearance as Vera’s daughter, and (before he puts two and two together) Downey’s bar-fling. Dax Shepard is the goofy, local doofus — a comedic role he knows well.
Some aspects of the movie were thrown in forcibly, which left me feeling less than satisfied. The love story, most of all, doesn’t feel quite natural, nor necessary to any plot aside from the life Hank left behind. It threw in too many clichés — the star older brother, the overshadowed younger brother, the “troubled” middle child, the townie high school girlfriend who was waiting for her love to return, the questions of “is her child mine?” — it all felt too jig-sawed.
By the time the movie delves completely into the storyline of Hank and Joseph, however, I was entranced. Watching them and Thornton command the screen was what I had wanted and more.
And the ending — it was nothing short of a marvel.
All in all, “The Judge” made its presence as an award season contender known.
Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
