This might be the first drama in a while in which Robert Downey jnr is back in a real-world setting. He portrays a big-city A-list lawyer attempting to reconcile with his small-town judge father as the newly-widowed old man also becomes a murder accused whose case he must win.
But this is, if anything, more bogus than anything Downey's done in Avenger-land. Yes there are outbreaks of acting between the two leads and Downey gets to talk that talk of his - described as "hyper-verbal vocabulary vomit" by a supporting character.
But The Judge is a tonal shambles and a really long one at that.
That Duvall's character is charged in the aftermath of a hit and run is kind of appropriate because The Judge itself weaves all over. It's switching lanes between back-in-the-'ol-hometown comedy, dysfunctional family soap, courtroom drama, and, briefly, tornado movie - without indicating. You do want to shout: Who's driving this thing? Director-wise, that's seasoned light comedy guy David Dobkin.
He can't help do dumb comedy things - mostly involving bodily fluids though none of the fun ones - in a movie that involves some fairly grim topics: murder, grief, guilt, cancer, getting to first base with the twentysomething daughter you didn't know you had ... oh right, that last one is played as a joke. Ho ho.
