There’s plenty to object to in ‘The Judge’

Believe it or not, there are some unpleasantries involved in watching movies for a living.

Latter-day Adam Sandler comedies, most sequels and movies based on toys that aren’t Legos are just a few.

Right up there, though, is having to say bad things about a Robert Downey Jr. movie. He’s legitimately one of my five favorite people in Hollywood, and dumping on his latest feels like kicking a lovably acerbic puppy.

But “The Judge” just sort of lays there for a taxing 141 minutes, unsure of what it wants to be.

At its heart, it’s a legal procedural.

Moments after literally peeing all over a prosecutor, slippery Chicago defense attorney Hank Palmer (Downey) is called home to tiny Carlinville, Ind., and its two-lane roads, grain silos and blueberry festival.

Hank’s mother has died, and the morning after the funeral, he discovers his father’s beloved Caddy wrecked in the garage. Police find a body in a ditch, then identify it as Mark Blackwell (Mark Kiely), an ex-con who’d been sentenced by Hank’s dad (Robert Duvall), a local judge with 42 years on the bench.

The Judge, as even Hank calls him, had taken pity on Blackwell and given him the minimum 30 days for having shot out the windows of his 16-year-old girlfriend’s bedroom. Thirty days later, Blackwell went back and drowned her. The Judge sentenced him again, this time to 20 years, and he was just released from prison.

But “The Judge” is also a reconciliation drama.

Hank and The Judge haven’t spoken in years, and theirs is a relationship based on handshakes, not hugs. But The Judge is not in great shape. He’s been “missing time,” and he’s only getting worse. So when police identify Blackwell‘s blood on The Judge’s car, Hank makes it clear he’s there to defend him whether The Judge wants him to or not. And he does not.

That’s when “The Judge” begins to feel like an extended pilot for a David E. Kelley dramedy teeming with eccentric locals.

The Judge’s attorney of choice, C.P. Kennedy (Dax Shepard), is a cartoonishly aw-shucks type who works out of his antiques store and is so cornpone, he makes Matlock look like My Cousin Vinny. His scenes, along with an occasionally amusing paternity sublot, seem ripped from a sillier movie.

And, if that weren’t enough, “The Judge” is also a redemption drama.

Hank is no one’s idea of a great man. “Everybody wants Atticus Finch,” he says, when confronted about his shady courtroom tactics, “till there’s a dead hooker in a hot tub.” When he defuses a potential bar brawl between his brothers (Vincent D’Onofrio, Jeremy Strong) and some rough-looking townies, Hank isn’t content to let the strangers leave without referring to their women as Bad-Skin Muffin Top and Red Bull Semen Breath. But when he reconnects with an old flame (Vera Farmiga), Hank manages to find some of the humanity that he’d lost along the way.

Much like the similar, and similarly overstuffed, “This Is Where I Leave You” — which also featured the death of a parent, a small-town homecoming, an ex who never left, the aftermath of a long-ago wreck involving teenagers, a mentally challenged character and Dax Shepard — director David Dobkin (“Wedding Crashers”) and screenwriters Nick Schenk (“Gran Torino”) and Bill Dubuque rarely get below the surface of their characters. Oscar nominee Farmiga and Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton, as the special prosecutor brought in to handle The Judge’s case, are woefully underutilized.

For everything “The Judge” gets wrong, though, Duvall is incapable of delivering a bad performance. And Downey will never be less than entertaining. There’s a certain smugness in his eyes here that I don’t think I’ve noticed since “Weird Science.”

The two share a heartbreaking moment, when The Judge is at his weakest, that feels so real, that’s just so wonderfully human, it’s alternately joyous and frustrating, because it hints at what “The Judge” could have been.

If only everyone involved could have decided which of several movies they wanted it to be.

Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567.