Sitting there witnessing the film unfold over 2 hours and 20 minutes, it’s clear there is a crisper, better movie in there somewhere, but director David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights, Wedding Crashers) never stops piling on the clichés, ultimately reducing The Judge to a kind of hokey made-for-television movie. Watch it for Duvall and Downey who breathe life into a mediocre script.

The majority of the screen time is hogged by Downey Jr strutting around hurling his smartass lines, and the film is 150-minute long, an unacceptable amount for a plot this thin. There is also a lame attempt at shoehorning a romance between the central character and his old flame (played by Vera Farmiga) and things go downhill pretty soon.