The Judge

"Hank" (Robert Downey Jr) is one of those shrewd and unscrupulous defence lawyers who always manages to get his dodgy clients off - even when he suspects that they are as guilty as sin. He's had a long-term estranged relationship with his dad, the judge of forty-two years (Robert Duvall) which a trip back home for his mother's funeral does little to repair, but shortly after he returns to Chicago he gets a call to advise that his dad has been involved in an hit and run - and might well be facing murder charges. He returns to defend a man he finds insufferably overbearing and detatched and over the course of the next couple of hours we learn a little of what drove the wedge between them and his two brothers "Glen" (Vincent D'Onofrio) and the not exactly robust "Dale" (Jeremy Strong) whilst he sort of rekindles a romance with "Sam" (Vera Farmiga). There are a few moments of poignancy here from Duvall as we follow his character into an almost torpid sense of despair after the death of his wife, coupled with a general unloading of family baggage and decades-old pent up stresses between himself and his son. It's on this front that the film works best and there is a solid chemistry between Duvall and Downey Jr - especially as the gloves come off. There is also quite an effectively calming effort from Billy Bob Thornton as the prosecuting attorney who is any may ways the anthesis of "Hank" and though I found the courtroom scenes a little too predictable, the plot towards the conclusion certainly isn't as it raises quite a few questions about vengeance, justice and he toxicity of old grudges.