The Judge

The Judge (2014) is about a big city defence lawyer returning to the town he grew up in for his mother's funeral. Hank Palmer gets criminals off for money. His father has been the judge in that town for forty years and the two have not spoken in years. Hank means to leave straight after the funeral. Then his father is charged over a road death: his car struck a man, and the man who died was a convict the judge had once sentenced leniently. The judge says he does not remember that night. The problem is that this may be true: he is having chemotherapy and has told nobody. The real subject is not the case. It lets a father and son say through a courtroom what they cannot say alone; Hank has to examine his own father, and that scene is the peak of the film. Robert Duvall was nominated for supporting actor at eighty three. Robert Downey Jr. is one of the producers, and it was among his attempts to return to work outside Marvel. There is a scene in a bathroom that describes the entire relationship without a line of dialogue. It is long and the subplots weigh on it: an old girlfriend, the brothers, the town. The last quarter is emotionally too tidied up. It runs 141 minutes. Good for: family drama, courtroom scenes, and performance. Less good for: it is long, predictable, and the sentiment runs high.