Reviews for this film from our members:
- José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Propuesta que escapa de la mera consideración telefílmica por el trabajo de sus actores principales. Mucho metraje, mucho cliché, poco espacio para la sorpresa. Un descanso para Robert Downey Jr. entre tanto ajetreo Marvel.
- Nicholas Bell @ IONCINEMA.com
- Excerpt: Groaning beneath the weight of its desperate grandstanding for awards consideration, David Dobkins’ The Judge launches a continuous covey of clichés at you as it vacillates between middlebrow familial melodrama, murder mystery, and half-baked courtroom drama.
- Luke Bonanno @ DVDizzy.com
- Excerpt: The Judge is severely lacking the intelligence and excitement we expect of courtroom dramas.
- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat @ SpiritualityandPractice.com
- Excerpt: Drama about the transformation of a smart and slick Chicago defense lawyer during a visit to his small Indiana hometown.
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: tries too hard with too much to deliver too little
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Time and again, the writers attempt sleight of hand – tossing out ideas in order to upend them with a different revelation – but the tactic doesn’t work and Dobkins’ direction of plot is ungainly.
- Jim Dixon @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: A deliberately manufactured, self-conscious class act from beginning to end, this dysfunctional family drama has been cast like a Yankees’ World Series contention team, photographed by Steven Spielberg’s cinematographer and scored by a 12-time Oscar nominee. Director David Dobkin (“Wedding Crashers,” “The Change-Up”) is attempting something more ambitious here, and he keeps his ducks in a row, but “The Judge” relentlessly refuses to pass up any opportunity to remind the audience they’re watching a movie.
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Screenwriters Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque are working under the misapprehension that having things happen to a character is the same as developing that character…
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall team up together for the first time in this sentimental journey, following a prodigal son from sin to redemption.
- Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
- Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
- Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: The prodigal son returns is frequently a crowd pleaser and Downey and Duvall will entertain you with their version of it.
- Ben Kendrick @ Screen Rant
- Excerpt: ‘The Judge’ is a very familiar tale of a man that finds humility in a return to his hometown – albeit one with a few genuinely powerful moments of drama.
- Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: A slick, sturdily performed middlebrow melodrama that meanders a bit and overstays its welcome, “The Judge” is just fine. If nothing else, Robert Downey Jr. gives this overlong, schmaltzy material a shot in the arm with his no-bull charisma.
- Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
- Pat Mullen @ Cinemablographer
- Excerpt: ‘The Judge’ plays it safe and pleads ‘no contest’. Nothing risked is nothing gained.
- João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Um típico melodrama de redenção familiar que desenvolve uma intriga previsível
- Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: The Judge resembles those John Grisham thrillers that were popular in the 90s before the public came to the realization that he was basically telling the same story over and over. This is not a Grisham thriller, it’s actually better because it has more investment in the characters. Yes, it’s about a big criminal trial but that’s only a backdrop. It’s just as effective as a human drama.
- Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
- Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: Slick but superficial and overloaded with cliches…entertaining enough, but in a shallow, manipulative fashion.
- [New – 3/20/15] | Sarah Ward @ artsHub
