out with a bargirl, only to wrestle
with the idea that she may be the
daughter he never knew he had).
But Duvall, Downey Jr., D’onofrio
(as Hank’s older brother) and
Emma Tremblay (Hank’s young
daughter) deliver performances
that transcend the cliched characters written on the page. Duvall is
particularly impressive, and any
Oscar talk that might surround
this film must surely be centred on
his terrific turn. Equally, Janusz Kaminski’s elegant cinematography
belongs in a better movie than
this.
There’s a market for this sort of
thing, one that’s probably gone
hungry in the years since the
genre’s Grisham heyday. Precisely
by striking all the familiar notes
(do all of these movies have to be
set in rural America?), it will likely
find a satisfied core audience. If
you’re not a devotee of Grisham
and his ilk, however, there’s little
beyond some great performances
to keep you satisfied.
If you do check it out, have a go
at figuring out the movie’s timeframe. I wasn’t paying strict attention to this element, but it seemed
to me like the whole movie, court
case and all, took place over no
more than a couple of weeks.
5 out of 10
Directed by: David Dobkin
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga,
Vincent D’onofrio, Dax Shepard, Leighton Meester, Jeremy
Strong, Billy Bob Thornton, Sarah Lancaster, Grace Zabriskie
New Jersey Stage
October 2014
pg 108