The Judge

Grade: B-

If there are vicious winds and a loud tornado siren going off, and suddenly your elderly father wanders out of the storm cellar into the open, that might be reason for somebody to run out and bring him back in. In a movie like The Judge, the father and estranged son use this as an opportunity to go inside the house and argue in the kitchen while standing near the largest windows possible, while the raging sounds of weather try to compete with the fury inside. Here, the film is directed by David Dobkin (Clay Pigeons, Wedding Crashers), and it could have used more of the lightheartedness he infused into all his Vince Vaughn comedies. The premise and the actors (which include Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr., Billy Bob Thornton, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Leighton Meester) are strong and solid, but then the film keeps veering off into lofty melodrama and unintentional goofiness. I thought montages of grainy filmstrip footage of the characters’ childhoods got old in the 80s. Downey’s character has a Quirky Younger Brother, who sometimes wears a Rain Man jacket, and seems to exist solely to show up with a cute one-liner at the perfect times. Don’t get me wrong: there’s something here, it’s just buried in a pretentious mess. The locations, score, and cinematography are astoundingly beautiful. Scenes take place in settings like the most quaint, idyllic lake where not another soul is present but the characters we are following. (And by the way, how DID that one character not slump all the way off the boat and plunge headfirst into the water?) But at what point do we stop caring about the bloated events of the plot, and start admiring the soundtrack and scenery?

Grade: B-