10th Anniversary TLDR: The Judge (2014)
My father is a lot of unpleasant things, but murderer is not one of them.
Plot: A successful lawyer returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral only to discover that his estranged father, the town’s judge, is suspected of murder.
Direction: David Dobkin is actually one of our Vince Vaughn boys (Clay Pigeons, Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus). He does serviceable work here in this standard drama.
Screenplay: Some pretty cliched stuff here from Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque about father-son relationships, alcoholism, small towns, dysfunctional families, law and order, and just about anything it tackles. It's really the actors that bring it off the paper and make the whole thing watchable.
Performances: Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall are very good at what they do and they do that here. In fact, just about everyone does what they always do: Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Leighton Meester, Billy Bob Thornton, and Dax Shepard. Same goes for Jeremy Strong...fans of Succession should...watch this movie ASAP.
Cinematography: Janusz Kamiński is one of our greats, spending most of his career working with Spielberg. The work here, however, is just straight mediocre. It's dull, it's flat, it's largely lifeless physically.
Best moment: Downey makes the perfect on-screen lawyer and Thornton the perfect bad guy, so anytime they get the chance to go head-to-head.
Fun fact: Willie Nelson's cover of Coldplay's "The Scientist" plays over the end credits - no kidding!
Imaginary accolade: Winner of "Truly Moving Picture" at the 2014 Heartland Film Festival (Indianapolis, Indiana)...I actually didn't make that one up.
Everything is too long. Is it too long? Way too long at 141 minutes. Could and should be 40 minutes shorter and without a few B-plots.
Rating: It's nobody's worst movie. It's nobody's best.
Credit: Plot synopsis from Letterboxd via TMDb.
Want to commission a review? Order from this list and you’ll get one in 30 days!