As eldest son, Glen, Vincent D’Onofrio carries the burden of regret and responsibility on his beefy shoulders as a former baseball prodigy whose sports career hopes were dashed by an injury. And if anything is emblematic of the strengths and weaknesses of The Judge, it is these two siblings. Meanwhile, a chorus line of family skeletons shake and rattle at regular intervals, some involving middle-child Hank’s brothers. Kramer.” After his legal shark returns to the small Midwest pond of his youth for his mother’s funeral, he and a perpetually disapproving Duvall bob and weave around each other like a pair of emotionally battered heavyweights-not unlike Debra Winger and Shirley MacLaine in “Terms of Endearment.” And there are plenty of “Verdict”-style legal entanglements as Hank is forced to represent his father while shaking out the potentially unpleasant truth behind a car accident that is considered a possible vehicular homicide. And themes found in the specific examples he cited as his inspirations - “Kramer vs Kramer,” “ Terms of Endearment” and “ The Verdict” – are duly reflected in "The Judge."ĭowney copes with his disintegrating marriage while attempting to get closer to his dumpling-cheeked daughter as a potential custody battle looms, just as in “ Kramer vs. As is often the case when an artist finally is allowed to achieve his dream, the director adds unnecessary clutter – there is much ado about hydrangeas as well as an old Metallica T-shirt - as if he fears he will never get a chance to do a drama again.īefore "The Judge"’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Dobkin told the audience that he always wanted to do the kind of movie that doesn’t get made anymore.
Actually, make that bits of Bit-O-Honey candy, one of the many repeated visual allusions to a past that tore these two men apart. Yet, there also are some less welcome elements and a certain dragginess to contend with as Dobkin overloads his plot with too many bits of business on the way to a John Grisham-lite finale. Duvall is the embodiment of grizzled authority but undercut by the grimace-inducing infirmities of old age. Downey gets to engage in his trademark hyper-verbal glibness but with a black sheep’s injured sadness in his eyes. But it was still a comedy.ĭobkin’s persistence has paid off in certain ways, mainly because it provides both its leads with an arena in which to occasionally show off their strengths. Studio types would look at the script and say, “But it’s not funny.” His 1998 breakout film, " Clay Pigeons," was a dark and nasty crime comedy, as black and violent as they come. Dobkin, whose father was a lawyer, spent a number of years in pursuit of this opportunity to prove himself as adept at serious subjects as silly ones. You can fairly smell the passion behind this project wafting off the screen.
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