The Judge Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

The Judge Blu-ray Movie Review

"My father's a lot of unpleasant things. A murderer's not one of them."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown January 28, 2015

The Judge wears its heart on its sleeve. And lungs. Its guts. Liver. Pancreas. It embraces full emotional embowelment, and does so with increasing regularity. More ambitious than your standard genre fare -- much more, overwrought and bloated as it is -- director David Dobkin's melo-legal-drama goes for broke, frequently lumbering in and out of the courtroom, shuffling down one too many small-town side streets, and meandering from heartaching start to tear-jerking finish with the grace of a 500-pound bailiff on lunch break. And yet a great deal of the film works. The performances are universally excellent (minus Dax Shepard, good God), even when Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque's script over-reaches and under-delivers. The familial tension, in-fighting and alienation is handled with a careful touch, and borders on poignant at times. And there are moments of profound pain and sweetness; scenes in which the screenwriters' computer keys stop clicking and clacking and something resembling authenticity steps forward and takes command. Yes, it's flawed and overly sentimental. Sometimes unbearably so. Yes, with some invasive editing and polishing, it would be a different film. A better film. And yes, it's the sort of rainy night Redbox schlock lonely hearts and empty nesters consider cinematic catharsis. But it's not a complete waste, particularly with Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr. infusing their roles as feuding father and son with such sincerity and soul.

Robert Downey Jr. stars as big city lawyer Hank Palmer, who returns to his childhood home in Highland Park, Illinois where his estranged father, the town's hard-nose judge, Joseph (Robert Duvall), is accused of hitting and killing a recently paroled murderer with his car. The judge insists that he doesn't remember anything, though, call his once sparkling reputation into question and luring no-nonsense prosecutor Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thorton) to the case. As Hank sets out to discover the truth and defend his father in the courtroom, he tackles decades-old issues with his father, reconnects with his brothers Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Dale (Jeremy Strong), and reunites with the high school sweetheart (Vera Farmiga) he abandoned years earlier.

Fun fact: The Judge earned an impressive Cinemascore from theatrical audiences -- an A- to be exact -- and that warrants some quick discussion. (We have the time. I'm pretty sure my intro made my feelings on the film abundantly clear.) By contrast, Rotten Tomatoes, or rather critics at large, slapped The Judge with a 47% "Rotten" rating. Why the disparity? Critics and audiences have long stood at opposite ends of the theater, so to speak, but rarely to such an extreme. Reviewers are pretentious and out of touch, cry the moviegoers. Bah! Moviegoers are too easy to woo and even easier to please, bark the reviewers. But the reality isn't that divisive. Take a moment and watch The Judge's theatrical trailer. Seriously, all of it. I'll wait.

Everyone back? Settled in? Let's cut to the chase then. No one, and I mean no one, could watch that trailer and be surprised by anything they encounter in The Judge. The sliding tone, the rhythms, the jarring shifts from light comedy to weepy family tear-jerker to courtroom drama, the style of the performances and screenwriting, the lump guaranteed to rise in your throat, the tears sure to sear the corners of your eyes, the heartache, the redemption, the mystery, the legal wranglings, the neatly packaged movie quotes, all right there, in one digestible, perfectly representative two-minutes and twenty-three seconds. Of course The Judge received an A- from audiences. The studio did an amazing job of tailoring its marketing to attract a very specific target demographic, and it worked.

There are people who consider The Judge one of the best movies of the year, and they're right. It is one of the best movies of the year... for that target demographic. When trailers ditch Hollywood's oh-so-common practices of moviegoer deception -- the marketing trickery and sleight of hand used to boost box office returns -- audiences are happier. Cinemascores rise. Critics will still grumble, shake their heads, and use words like "cliché" and "conventional" until they're blue in the cheeks. (To interject, I would have used the word "cliché" at least a half-dozen times in a lengthy dissection of the film.) But audiences will pay their $10, laugh, sob and cheer for 141 minutes, and thank the studio for the privilege.

So where does that leave us? The Judge is as formulaic as they come; so formulaic that it lifts the formula of at least three different genre pics. It's the sort of movie that will never appeal to all viewers, never garner critical acclaim, and never find its way onto the awards docket. But that's where an honest trailer becomes a godsend. I don't have to watch The Judge to know it's not for me. It's right there in the trailer, confirmed by critics, and hailed only by a small but vocal minority. I also didn't have to watch the entire film to know it's precisely the kind of film my mother would adore, that my sister-in-law would expend a box of tissues watching, and that several of our dearest family friends would revisit multiple times, coming away more satisfied with each viewing. Personal Taste is obviously the culprit, followed by co-conspirators Expectation and Familiarity. But there's nothing wrong with that. Want to know if The Judge is for you? For once, a trailer is more interested in assembling the right audience than in trying to fool everyone into thinking it's the next groundbreaking, award-winning modern classic.

The Judge Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Blu-ray release of The Judge features a commanding 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation, albeit one I suspect has been processed a touch too much. Contrast is quite hot, artificial sharpening is a bit too aggressive, and ringing, crush and grain inconsistencies are minor issues. None of it amounts to an outright distraction, but the sum total will irritate more sensitive viewers. Even so, much of the film's stark, sun-beat aesthetic traces back to Janusz Kamiński's cinematography and director David Dobkin's intentions (as noted at one point in the filmmaker's audio commentary), which limits any complaints to those of the subjective variety. Skintones are relatively natural. Colors, though often desaturated, are no less striking. Black levels are rich and inky. And detail is remarkably revealing, particularly in close-ups. Edges are crisply defined, textures are sharply resolved, and delineation is decidedly decent (barring a few mishaps). Artifacting, banding, aliasing and other significant anomalies are nowhere to be found as well, with a faint hint of shimmering in one of the film's opening shots being the only exception to the rule. The Judge isn't always the most handsome legal drama, but its encode is proficient and precise; enough to please fans and satisfy detractors.

The Judge Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Warner's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track may exercise tremendous restraint more often than not, but it does so without ignoring the nuances and potential of enveloping, illusive sound design. Country homes, local diners, funeral parlors, bars, and courtrooms boast convincing acoustics and subtle directional effects, creating a wide array of small-town interiors that sound every bit as authentic as they should. LFE output and rear speaker activity follow suit, with only a few perfectly prioritized outbursts and collisions drawing attention. Not that Dobkin or his team would want it any other way. Dialogue, meanwhile, is clear, intelligible and nicely centered, without anything that might disrupt the carefully constructed proceedings. Likewise, pans are smooth, dynamics are excellent, and the soundfield is immersive and engaging; which is saying a lot when it comes to a quiet, conversation-laden dysfunctional family drama. Thomas Newman's score serves as an appropriate counterweight, adding levity and heart to the heaviness and tragedy, and does so without overwhelming the rest of the soundscape or shrinking away from the forefront. Simply put, Warner's lossless track delivers.

The Judge Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary: Director David Dobkin offers a rather dry recounting of the production, touching on story development, the casting process, the performances, Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque's screenplay, Janusz Kaminski's cinematography, Thomas Newman's score, the tone and tenor of a variety of scenes and themes, and other key decisions made during pre-production and throughout the shoot and editing of the film.
• Inside The Judge (HD, 22 minutes): Dobkin, producer Susan Downey, Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio and Jeremy Strong sit down to discuss the project, story, location shoot and performances of The Judge in this lengthy roundtable. Also featured is a good bit of behind-the-scenes footage, with the cast working to create their characters under Dobkin's guidance.
• Getting Deep with Dax Shepard (HD, 9 minutes): A desperate-to-entertain Shepard awkwardly interviews Robert Downey Jr., Vincent D'Onofrio and Billy Bob Thorton.
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 18 minutes): Nearly twenty deleted scenes are available -- some quite good, some quite redundant -- with optional filmmaker commentary with David Dobkin.

The Judge Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Judge bites off more than it can chew and spends the majority of its runtime gnawing on melodramatic gristle. Some of you will love every clichéd, tear-jerking, heartfelt minute, even if it can't decide whether it wants to be a dysfunctional family drama, a courtroom thriller, a redemption story or something else entirely. Others won't be so easily manipulated or lured into its web of heartstrings, having grown tired of seeing it all a hundred times before. Fortunately, Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr. and the film's (mostly) outstanding cast help the movie rise above its script, at least enough to fully satisfy its target demographic. Cinemascore says A-. Rotten Tomatoes says F. I say it's a solid C. But watch the trailer and go with your gut. Warner's Blu-ray release is much better, with a strong video presentation, terrific DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, and a decent selection of special features.