Everybody wants Atticus Finch until there’s a dead hooker in the bathtub.

The Judge

(2014)

(SPOILERS) Robert Downey Jr.’s non-Iron Man, non-Sherlock Holmes self-produced vanity project took a tumble at about this time last year. It probably left a few studio suits scratching their heads. This was the star in his cocky element (unlike Due Date), playing off one of cinema’s great actors (Robert Duvall), playing in a reliable genre staple (the courtroom drama). It isn’t so mystifying on actually watching the thing. The Judge is bloated, unfocused and manages to coddle the viewer with clichés while simultaneously inserting material if thinks might be a little edgy (but really isn’t).

Actually, scratch that. I was genuinely surprised by the scene in which Downey’s Hank Palmer must avoid slipping over in his ailing father Joseph’s (Duvall) shit, and then proceeds to help him clean himself up. This in a picture that is otherwise so shamelessly glossy and textbook in the narrative points it hits.

Warner Bros must be thanking their lucky stars that David Dobkin’s Arthur and Lancelot never went into production. Dobkin’s fine as an anonymous comedy guy (well… he is responsible for Fred Claus) but only Downey Jr. knows why he was thought to have the chops for a serious drama. His approach seems to be marbling the picture in Janusz Kaminski’s lush visuals (that light flooding the courtroom though; sheesh!) and allowing Thomas Newman to smother it with an emotionally tugging but banal score. Mostly the picture just meanders, never able to gather steam on a course that is constantly checking itself; is this a family saga, a romance, a murder mystery? There’s even a smattering of ill-advised adult humour as Hank frets over whether the young woman he copped off with when he got to town is in fact his daughter (it’s okay, she’s only his niece! But he’s still not telling his ex).

I think I had in mind Downey Jr. attempting to do a proper courtroom drama when I heard about the picture, à la The Verdict, but every element of Hank’s journey is tired and familiar. He’s that heartless rich lawyer without a shred of moral fibre (“And how does it feel, Hank, knowing every person you represent is guilty?”: “It’s fine. Innocent people can’t afford me”), a guy who pisses on an opposing prosecuting attorney’s shoes in the first scene, who is splitting up with his pert wife and is estranged from his curmudgeonly father. Don’t worry, though. He adores his daughter, so we know it will all work out fine in the end.

Just because material is familiar, doesn’t mean it can’t be fruitful; the rich city guy returning to the small town of his birth and rediscovering himself is evergreen in potential. It’s mostly squandered here, though. The obligatory old flame, as personified by the wonderful but underused Vera Farmiga, adds little to the proceedings other than expanding the running time unnecessarily to the two-and-a-quarter hour mark (this is where the Downey vanity vehicle bit comes in; it has to cater for any emotion he wishes to explore herein, including showing his abs).

There’s the crafty prosecutor (Billy Bob Thornton, running on autopilot, but who can blame him), the inexperienced defender (Dax Shepard, decent but doing his well-meaning doofus shtick) and the brothers; could’ve-been-a-ballplayer-if-not-for-Hank’s-dark-past (Vincent D’Onofrio, doing the nice guy) and learning disabled filmmaker Hank stands rock solid by (Jeremy Strong). The latter’s facility leads to overcooked nostalgia trip home movies.

The trial revolves around whether Joseph, on the night after burying his wife, ran down and killed a man he regretted letting off lightly 20 years earlier (who subsequently got out of prison and killed his girlfriend). None of the twists are sufficiently dramatic (it’s patently obvious Joseph hasn’t started on the booze again, and is ill when he forgets someone’s name, rather undermining Hank’s shit-hot credentials), and Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque’s screenplay even resorts to a big emotional bonding moment mid-trial as Joseph reveals just how much he loved his wayward son despite it all.

The Judge lacks balls. To paraphrase a question Hank asks his brothers, what line was Dobkin in when they were distributing testicles? He’s content to imbue the movie with a superficial veneer, only occasionally punctured by its stars, because that’s the only kind of movie he seems comfortable making. This is a picture with so little real inspiration, when it comes across a good line it has to put quotation marks around it (“Everybody wants Atticus Finch until there’s a dead hooker in the bathtub”). Downey Jr. is very much not stretching himself here, but he’s reliable, and he’s more than up to playing a scene opposite Duvall, who is the (only) real reason to see this.

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

You think a monkey knows he’s sitting on top of a rocket that might explode?

The Right Stuff (1983) (SPOILERS) While it certainly more than fulfils the function of a NASA-propaganda picture – as in, it affirms the legitimacy of their activities – The Right Stuff escapes the designation of rote testament reserved for Ron Howard’s later Apollo 13 . Partly because it has such a distinctive personality and attitude. Partly too because of the way it has found its through line, which isn’t so much the “wow” of the Space Race and those picked to be a part of it as it is the personification of that titular quality in someone who wasn’t even in the Mercury programme: Chuck Yaeger (Sam Shephard). I was captivated by The Right Stuff when I first saw it, and even now, with the benefit of knowing-NASA-better – not that the movie is exactly extolling its virtues from the rooftops anyway – I consider it something of a masterpiece, an interrogation of legends that both builds them and tears them down. The latter aspect doubtless not NASA approved.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Drank the red. Good for you.

Morbius (2022) (SPOILERS) Generic isn’t necessarily a slur. Not if, by implication, it’s suggestive of the kind of movie made twenty years ago, when the alternative is the kind of super-woke content Disney currently prioritises. Unfortunately, after a reasonable first hour, Morbius descends so resignedly into such unmoderated formula that you’re left with a too-clear image of Sony’s Spider-Verse when it lacks a larger-than-life performer (Tom Hardy, for example) at the centre of any given vehicle.

So, you’re telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake?

Conspiracy Theory (1997) (SPOILERS) Mel Gibson’s official rehabilitation occurred with the announcement of 2016’s Oscar nominations, when Hacksaw Ridge garnered six nods, including Mel as director. Obviously, many refuse to be persuaded that there’s any legitimate atonement for the things someone says. They probably weren’t even convinced by Mel’s appearance in Daddy’s Home 2 , an act of abject obeisance if ever there was one. In other circles, though, Gibbo, or Mad Mel, is venerated as a saviour unsullied by the depraved Hollywood machine, one of the brave few who would not allow them to take his freedom. Or at least, his values. Of course, that’s frequently based on alleged comments he made, ones it’s highly likely he didn’t. But doesn’t that rather appeal to the premise of his 23-year-old star vehicle Conspiracy Theory , in which “ A good conspiracy theory is an unproveable one ”?

He doesn’t want to lead you. He just wants you to follow.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (SPOILERS) The general failing of the prequel concept is a fairly self-evident one; it’s spurred by the desire to cash in, rather than to tell a story. This is why so few prequels, in any form, are worth the viewer/reader/listener’s time, in and of themselves. At best, they tend to be something of a well-rehearsed fait accompli. In the movie medium, even when there is material that withstands closer inspection (the Star Wars prequels; The Hobbit , if you like), the execution ends up botched. With Fantastic Beasts , there was never a whiff of such lofty purpose, and each subsequent sequel to the first prequel has succeeded only in drawing attention to its prosaic function: keeping franchise flag flying, even at half-mast. Hence Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore , belatedly arriving after twice the envisaged gap between instalments and course-correcting none of the problems present in The Crimes of Grindelwald .

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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