Brandon at Random Reviews

You know, I remember hearing that this movie was coming out way back when and I guess I just never remembered to go see it and then proceeded to forget about it forever until it was suggested yesterday that I review it. Sometimes you just have to give shit a chance.

Robert Downey Jr. was really hitting his stride off the Marvel movies he was killing it in and he brings it here. And my god, Vera Farmiga has a great performance and also looks fucking amazing (like always) in this movie. Vincent D’Onofrio is criminally underrated as is frequently the case. And Billy Bob Thornton is at the top of his game as well. Don’t forget Robert Duvall here in what I refer to as “a very Robert Duvall-y” role.

Downey’s character has to leave in the middle of a case (he’s a lawyer) in order to come to his mother’s funeral and spend some unexpected time with his family. He has the most friction with his titular judge father, who is played by Duvall. He ends up having to defend Duvall in court for a very major charge, which is essentially the plot of the movie, amongst minglings with Farmiga’s character and other random shit like coming to grips with having abandoned his hometown and reconnecting with his brothers and help his fairly young daughter understand what’s going on with the family.

This one feels like the type where you know what it’s all building to in the story. But you don’t. It’s not reeeeaaallllyyy the kind of movie you might think it will be. At least that’s my opinion. It is a familiar tale in that it involves some hot shot having to come home for the first time in many years after getting the hell out of town when he was young, but still, it’s different. RDJ is the centerpiece of this movie and he does play the bitter “I moved on with my life” son that has to come back amidst tragedy.

I would say all in all, despite being a teensy tiny bit “been done before”, this was a pretty good movie and it takes its own direction. It’s on Hulu if you’d like to check it out.

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