The Judge review

    Spoilers! I mean I will spoil this movie completely so go watch it and come back!
 
   Judge is a movie starring Robert Downy JR. as Henry "Hank" Palmer who is a hot-shot bends the rule asshole judge who gets word that his mother has died and returns home to his golden-child brother Glenn, his mentally-challenged brother Dale and his father the strict but compassionate Judge Joseph Palmer who is played by Robert Duvall. Hank and Judge don't along too well, they borderline hate each other (it's more on Downy's part than Duvall) because of the fact that when Hank was younger he was a delinquent and Judge sent him to juvenile detention center even when he only could have just done community service hours (Yeah he's the tough, tough, tough love kind of parent.)

   Yet now his father has killed someone and now he has to defend his father in the process getting their relationship back in order.

    I really liked this movie for a lot of reasons. First off Downy and Duvall, Downy is amazing with his return to dramatic form and it's awesome, I love Downy and not just because he's Iron man and is good at it, but watch stuff like kiss, kiss bang bang and Chaplin he is an amazing dramatic actor that some people forget he can be. Duvall is also amazing in this movie as while he is super serious and strict you can still see the compassionate and honorable man he is so while in some scenes you can dislike him for some of the things he's done you can never hate him because he's so good and sympathetic. This movie also has a lot of good side character performances, such as Jeremy Strong as Dale, I bought him as mentally challenged without it coming off as fake or too much.

   I also like this is a morally gray film overall because while it's revealed that due to cancer and the grief of loosing his wife Judge did still kill the the guy and even the victim himself was not totally innocent so you are left to decide whether or not Judge should go to jail and I like a film that takes it's audience and lets them decide what was right whether or not Judge should be punished. This is also a thing Robert Downy JR's character had to decide whether or not his father was innocent or not add to the fact it's his FATHER who he is also defending. I loved that part of the movie.

   I also like how the opposing lawyer played by Billy Bob Thorton is not painted as a douchebag bad guy rather as someone who just wants to see what he believes as a murder go to jail and for the victims family to get their justice.

   I also like unlike other films where the feuding father and son they're all buddies and love each other at the end, in this by the end while their relationship is way better and stronger you get the impression their are things that just won't heal between these two and some things will never be OK. Which is sad but natural at the same time.

   This movie was also shot really well and has very beautiful scenery and lighting effects. OK that's all I loved about the film what don't I like about this film that's keeping me from totally loving it.

  In the film they do the whole old-highschool-manic-pixie-dream-girl-girlfriend trope, the one where he meets up with his old high school sweetheart and falls in love with her again, and it's really boring and it really distracts from the plot and does not make sense overall. They also do a thing where he thinks he's the father of the women's daughter (who looks like she could be her sister because of how old the actress playing the girlfriend looks) and it turns out he's not so it really pointless. If they had cut those parts out completely and just focused on the Hank and Judge relationship this would be a total best picture winner movie but this subplot drags it down so hard it keeps it from doing it's very best.

  I also wished the fleshed out the Glenn Brother (who is played by Vincent De'nafrio the new king pin for all the Daredevil fans) who they put a major emphasis on but doesn't get fleshed out to well except for one or two scenes. I also wished they fleshed out what happened with his ex-wife because while they do tell us why they split they never show it. I also would have edited the first five minutes of this film before he comes homes because it feels really abrupt and misplaced.

I give this film a 8.5/10- Interesting characters, cool main story and interesting moral dilemmas but just do a better editing job and cut out that stupid subplot.
 
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