Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
It’s a well-known adage—and rightly so—that cinema is a collaborative process. A wide-ranging conglomerate of artists ranging from cinematographers, stuntmen, screenwriters, make-up artists, costume designers, production designers, composers, musicians, actors, producers, and finally—ultimately–the director. And this is only a sampling of the artists and technicians who make movies happen. Gaffers, grips, and sound technicians are only a few more of those involved. Try actually reading the closing credits of a film sometime. This list includes those whose work appears behind as well as on screen—the accountants, attorneys, marketers, publicity agents, and casting directors work supports the artists.
Considering the sensibilities, opinions, visions, and egos of everyone involved, it sometimes seems miraculous that movies get made at all. When great films do get made, it seems like manna from heaven. The great directors like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, and Francis Ford Coppola have somehow managed to consistently translate their visions onto the silver screen. Some are collaborative, others authoritarian, and others—like Wes Anderson—seem to draw other artists into his peculiar and brilliant worlds.
Films like Goodfellas, Barry Lyndon, Apocalypse Now, and Schindler’s List are paragons of great cinema, sterling examples of how a group of sometimes disparate people work toward one single goal. Too many times, however, films are released that seem jumbled, garbled, or packed so full of plot they don’t make sense. One example of the latter is David O. Russell’s Joy, which came on the heels of the eminently successful—and brilliant—Silver Linings Playbook. Both films featured Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert DeNiro and were written (or co-written) by Mr. Russell. While Playbook was funny, touching, and a relatively seamless narrative about two wounded people struggling for, well, anything to hang onto, Joy, based on the true story of Joy Mangano, a self-made millionaire, and featuring the same cast and production team, seemed disjointed and hollow. For whatever reason, the narrative seemed disjointed and hollow. Same cast, same actors, same director, but a much different result, which of course begs the question why.
In the sports world, pundits who evaluate teams and matchups will talk about intangibles, those mysterious factors that play into a great performance. Or when they talk about teams in disarray, they mention conflicts between management and labor, locker room disruptors, and dissatisfied players.
The Judge forces that question. This legal thriller boasts writer Nick Schenk, who won an Oscar for Gran Torinoand Bill Dubuque, who brought us the seires Ozark. Director David Dobkin helmed Mr. Woodcock, Fred Claus, and The Wedding Crashers, among others. The cast of The Judge is simply stellar, featuring Robert Duvall, Robert Downey, Jr., Billy Bob Thornton, Vera Farmiga, Jeremy Strong, Vincent D’Onofrio, and even Ken Howard. Yet this film somehow fails to deliver.
Ruthless defense attorney Hank Palmer (Robert Downey, Jr.) is called back to his boyhood home when his mother passes away. Hank is estranged from his father, Judge Joseph Palmer (Duvall), and has not seen his brothers Glen (D’Onofrio) and Dale (Strong) for years. The night of the funeral, the judge leaves on an errand and the next morning, his boys discover his car is damaged and that a man had been struck and killed on the road the previous night.
The judge is subsequently arrested for manslaughter and hires a local attorney C.P. Kennedy (Dax Shepherd) to defend him. Once it becomes apparent C.P. is in over his head, Hank convinces his father to let him be his defense counsel. It is also revealed the judge is battling serious health issues.
The trial goes on and Hank finds himself becoming closer to his father and brothers. Also thrown into this casserole of the prodigal son plot points is the reemergence of Samantha Powell (Vera Farmiga), Hank’s high-school sweetheart, and the rather creepy introduction of her grown daughter Carla (Leighton Meester). The story winds slowly and inevitably toward its cliched and saccharine conclusion, leaving the viewer with a feeling much like opening the fridge only to find week-old leftovers.
There are a lot of mediocre movies out there, so seeing just one more is no great surprise. What is surprising—and sad and disappointing—is that so much talent went into such an inferior product. Taken by themselves, the elements making up this film are good. The acting is superb, although the characters filled by these actors are woefully underdrawn. They are exactly what we expect a bitter son returning home to a domineering father and rediscovering an old love to be. The trial is completely conventional with only one kind of unsurprising surprise.
Downey Jr.’s whipsnap intelligence and bravura is as sharp as ever while Duvall’s lofty ideals and crusty philosophizing (shades of Gus McRae) are as charming as ever. Strong gives a poignant performance as Dale, while Farmiga does all she can with a character that is little more than a sketch. D’Onofrio, Thornton, and Shepherd all give good performances.
The production design itself seems out of place for a courtroom narrative. Set in a small Indiana town, the sequence when Downey drives through almost looks like a Hallmark commercial, hilariously underlined by his line, “Nothing ever changes.” Everything is pretty and idealized—the kids playing, the sidewalks crowded with busy shoppers, the beautiful tree-lined boulevards, and there’s nothing ironic about it.
And, like a casserole made up of leftovers, scenes seem to be almost arbitrarily thrown in: Hank’s encounter with Carla, his young daughter’s (Emma Tremblay) sudden visit to a grandpa she’s never met, and a late-night break-in to the local diner. None of these scenes do anything to further the plot. They only succeed in cluttering it.
It may well have been that the marketers and producers and focus groups decided the film needed more of a love interest and an adorable kid and a tough-as-nails down-to-earth ex-girlfriend to ground the hero in good old middle-class midwestern values. After all, films cost a lot of money to make and need to make a lot of money to cover costs and the money guys want to appeal to as big an audience as possible, but it seems self-defeating to take a strong premise—the prodigal son returning home to defend his father and in the process discovering redemption for both of them—and try to make a one-size-fits-all product. Not everyone has to like a great movie. Not everyone should like a great movie. It’s rare that a film will be both a great artistic achievement and a moneymaker. Steven Spielberg has probably come closest in finding that common zone between great cinema and better profits.
Whatever happened, The Judge is nothing more than a huge disappointment. It is predictable, cliché, cloying, and condescending. It is somewhat entertaining, but hardly worth the time it takes to watch it. While seeing Duvall, Downey, Jr., Farmiga, and Strong fill the screen is gratifying, it is not enough to save this movie.