There are a number of fine reasons to see the courtroom-meets-family melodrama
As you might suspect, two stand out: actors Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr.
Portraying estranged father and son, respectively, honorable judge and hot-shot defense attorney — and the accused and his lawyer — the duo circle each other, square off, growl and occasionally draw blood.
After a willful absence, Hank Palmer (Downey Jr.) returns to Carlinville, Ind., for his beloved mother’s funeral. Much like he did 20 years earlier, he high-tails it out of the bucolic town as soon as he can. Only, he’s called back by older brother Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio) when the judge is hauled in by the sheriff for a car accident.
Joseph Palmer’s ’73 Coupe DeVille has a battered fender and blood on the grille. A man was found dead on a dark, wet road. Turns out, the man and the judge have a history. The sort of past that allows prosecutor Dwight Dickham to lay out a case for premeditation. As fictional names go, this one seems sort of silly, but Billy Bob Thornton plays the role with a fixed intent that makes it clear Dickham’s no joke. For comic relief, there’s Dax Shepard’s turn as Joe’s original and out-of-his depth defender, C.P. Kennedy.
Beyond the “did he or didn’t he?” quandaries, more familial mysteries hang in the summertime humidity. Why did Hank flee those many years ago? How is it possible his nicely precocious daughter Lauren (Emma Tremblay) never met her grandmother?
Not that Hank went so very far away. He plies his well-compensated trade in Chicago, where he lives in a wood and glass house with a wife who’s had it with him.
We see vivacious wife-and-mother Mary Palmer (Carol S. Austin) mostly through the footage of son Dale’s Super 8 camera. The youngest of the three Palmer boys, played by Jeremy Strong, Dale has a cognitive handicap that his constant filming signals as well as tempers. It’s clear from his early home movies who kept this clan together. It’s less clear what it will take to reunite them.
D’Onofrio as eldest son Glen conveys an observant silence — not smug but burdened.
“The Judge” foregrounds familial wounds against a backdrop of courtroom tension. Yes, director David Dobkin’s gestures feel at times overly typical of the two well-traveled genres.
More often, due to some barbed dialogue by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque, this drama finds prickly tenderness in subtle, even humorous, revelations about fathers and sons, home and hometowns.
Vera Farmiga plays Hank’s high-school girlfriend, Samantha. Farmiga makes a nice argument that there’s a richer identity in being the one who stayed than the stereotypical one that got away.
Vying with Mary Palmer for the ghost hanging most over this tale might be that of Atticus Finch. Hank mentions the hero of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and Carlinville’s courtroom, with its balcony, even resembles the one Gregory Peck made famous in the 1962 film, which marked the big-screen debut of a fellow named Robert Duvall.
Hank watches from the balcony as the Judge does his thing. Joe Palmer’s thing fulfills a wish many of us still harbor for perfectly executed paternalism. Downey Jr. and Duvall satisfy a moviegoer’s yearning for performances of stillness and bravado, not afraid of sentiment or grace.
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567, lkennedy@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ bylisakennedy
