Three stars. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang
Some stories, despite an engaging
premise and a solid opening act, eventually work themselves into an unfortunate
corner.
Sadly, that’s the case with The Judge, a well-cast and tightly
plotted legal thriller that gets considerable mileage from the tempestuous,
high-octane pairing of Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr., as a severely
estranged father and son.
Tightly plotted, that is, until
the film wears out its welcome with an increasingly contrived and deeply
unsatisfying third act ... by which point director David Dobkin’s 141-minute
drama has become at least half an hour too long.
Dobkin certainly draws excellent
performances from his stars and their supporting players: no problem there. But
his writing experience hails from broad slapstick (Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus)
and popcorn action flicks (Jack the Giant Slayer, R.I.P.D.), which hardly
makes him ready for narrative territory inhabited far better by the likes of
John Grisham, Michael Connelly and Scott Turow.
Dobkin shares the writing chores
here with scripters Nick Schenk (Gran Torino) and Bill Dubuque, and the result eventually feels overcooked: a
high-concept proposal likely sold via a tantalizing 25-word pitch that lacked a
solid punch line. Hollywood is littered with the forgotten corpses of such
projects: promising at first glance, but ultimately disappointing.
And I’m fairly certain most
viewers will be quite unhappy with
the way this one ends.
Downey’s Hank Palmer is a slick,
big-city defense attorney who makes no apologies for employing every possible
legal trick to get his wealthy but clearly guilty clients off the hook.
(“They’re the only ones who can afford me.”) Although Hank is troubled by
neither scruples nor morals, his surface glad-handing masks an arrogant jerk
with a miserable home life shared with a hotsy-totsy younger wife (Sarah
Lancaster, in a fleeting and thankless part) poised to divorce him, thus turning
their adorable little girl — Emma Tremblay, as Lauren — into a reluctant
bargaining chip.
Then, suddenly, a crisis: the
death of Hank’s mother, which brings him back to his bucolic (and frankly
gorgeous) home town of tiny Carlinville, Ind. (actually Shelburne Falls, Mass.).
He abandoned this scene years earlier, no longer able to withstand the
belittling treatment from his father, Joseph (Duvall), who happens to be the
community’s long-presiding judge.
The reunion is hardly cheerful,
despite the obvious bond Hank feels for older brother Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio)
and younger brother Dale (Jeremy Strong), both of whom remained in Carlinville.
Hank and his father immediately
fall into their old, long-established pattern of mutual contempt and rapacious
verbal sniping, much to the chagrin of everybody else. It’s a well-established
fact that people, no matter how old they get, often revert to a powerless
adolescent dynamic when in the presence of their parents, particularly if the
setting is a childhood home.
And if the relationship is
long-frayed to begin with, the situation is far worse: The unresolved issues that
have been held at bay, in the shelter of the well-established lives we’ve built
elsewhere, pop right back to the surface.
Hank lingers just long enough for
his presence to be deemed appropriate. But his subsequent attempt to flee —
literally — is interrupted by a fresh catastrophe: a hit-and-run on a quiet
country road outside Carlinville, which left a dead man ... and all evidence
points to Judge Joseph Palmer having been behind the wheel. Worse yet, the
judge is known to have loathed the victim.
Hank can’t believe it, despite
the mounting proof; his personal feelings aside, he knows his father as a
strict believer in law and order. And yet there’s something odd about Joseph’s
behavior, leading Hank to fear that his long-sober father may have gone off the
wagon. If so, could the traffic fatality have occurred during a blackout?
Efforts to minimize the incident
are dashed with the arrival of seasoned prosecutor Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob
Thornton), a lawyer with his own deep-seated grudge against Hank, thanks to a
prior legal clash. The feral Dickham is eager to use this case as a means for
revenge, matching his “honest lawyering skills” against Hank’s tricky
tendencies, which the visiting prosecutor feels confident won’t work with an
upright jury of solid, conservative Middle Americans.
That’s assuming, of course, that
Hank will even be allowed to defend
his father. Joseph wants nothing to do with his middle son, and instead has
hired local antique dealer-turned-lawyer C.P. Kennedy (Dax Shepard). Poor
Kennedy, good-natured and naïve, has no idea what he’s about to get from
Dickham.
Add Vera Farmiga as Samantha —
the girl Hank left behind years earlier, who now runs the town’s favorite
restaurant/bar — and the result is a tempestuous stew of piquant clashes and
bubbling squabbles.
It’s all quite entertaining, well
through the second act, thanks to Dobkin’s careful blend of family strife and
unexpected humor. This isn’t the sort of breathtakingly vicious,
take-no-prisoners warfare we got with last year’s big-screen adaptation of
Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County;
this film’s verbal jabs, although often savage, are scripted more to function
as clever zingers.
We certainly wince at some of
Judge Palmer’s spiteful behavior, in great part because Duvall and Downey put
considerable passion into their performances. But we never get a sense that
theirs is a hopelessly doomed relationship; salvation seems possible, if highly
improbable.
And, no question, this film’s
best moments come when Hank and Joseph tear into each other: Duvall
unapologetically blunt and contemptuous, Downey forever embittered and
frustrated by the failure of Hank’s repeated efforts to break through his
father’s mean-spirited walls. Insanity may be defined as repeatedly trying the
same thing while expecting different results, but that’s the nature of
fractured family relationships: We simply can’t help ourselves.
The dexterity of Downey’s craft
comes from the little touches he inserts throughout: the exasperated
hesitations, the eyebrow-lifting double takes, the expressions of briefly
stunned surprise that melt into stubborn retorts. He truly commands the screen.
But not entirely. Duvall,
malicious half-smile always at the ready, gives as good as he gets.
So does the always captivating
Thornton, who deftly establishes Dickham’s capable “villain” when he sits in
court the first time, and opens a collapsible drinking cup with an authoritative
snap. Thornton never needs to raise
his voice; Dickham owns the room because he is
the alpha predator.
Strong is genuinely touching as
youngest brother Dale, whose fragile demeanor results from mild developmental
disabilities; he keeps the tempestuous world at bay by filming everything with
his ubiquitous Super 8 camera. It’s easier for Dale to experience the world
second-hand, via movies that he can edit to his own satisfaction. Despite this,
he adores both of his older brothers, and some of the film’s most touching
scenes occur quietly, when (for example) Dale lays a comforting hand on Hank’s
shoulder.
D’Onofrio’s Glen veers in the
other direction: more brusque and aggrieved than usual, in part because he
knows, with his mother’s passing, that responsibility for Dale and their father
likely will fall in his lap. It’s
inevitable, since Hank is never around ... which, in turn, fuels their
respective angst.
Then, too, Glen and Hank also
have additional reason for their mutual wariness: one of those tantalizing
family secrets parceled out via little hints, until finally revealed.
Farmiga’s Samantha is deliciously
sultry, but she also represents this story’s voice of reason: the one person
able to see through Hank’s professional bluster, and the one person he’ll allow
to do so. Farmiga continues to impress, imbuing her roles with suggestions of
far more complexity than likely existed on the scripted page.
However...
The further we get into the core
plotline, the more it begins to collapse under its own weight. The courtroom
theatrics become absurd. Sidebar issues, as well, get left behind: most notably
the impact this script’s implied dénouement will have on Hank’s beloved young
daughter. Aside from grappling with an upsetting finale, we’re left with too
many unanswered questions.
Ironically, I can’t help feeling
the film would have been vastly improved with the complete removal of the
judge’s involvement in the hit-and-run incident, although that would have necessitated
a different reason for Hank to hang around. There’s plenty of dramatic and
entertaining sizzle, without the murder-trial catalyst that becomes
increasingly intrusive.
Ah, well. There’s still much to
recommend the initial 90 minutes or so.
No comments:
Post a Comment