Family Secrets-Robert Downey, Jr.’s The Judge
DVD Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Judge, starring Robert Downey,Jr., Robert Duvall, 2014
A couple of things that I learned from my cranky old Irish Catholic grandfather, cranky once he had a stroke and had to be invalided out of Carver Fire Department that he dearly loved, that came to my mind when watching the film under review, Robert Downey, Jr.’s The Judge. First, my grandfather, or rather my grandfather and his people had been kicked out of Irish from nothing more than they had run out of luck. Run out of luck in that case being when the absentee Anglo-Irish landlord owner of the midget farm they were trying to survive on decided to call in their debts and not having any money when they resisted foreclosure the landlord went to Her Majesty’s court (this was back in the 19th century during benighted Queen Victoria’s time) about it the judge dismissed their concerns out of hand. Adding insult to injury that same judge when my grandfather and his kindred physically resisted eviction and wound up in gaol (jail) for some serious assault and battery charges the judge ordered them out of the country on penalty of a severe sentence. So the first lesson in life he told me was that while justice was blind, she was blind to injustice more often than not. I would translate that wisdom later to something the sardonic comedy Lenny Bruce, who had had a fistful of run-ins with Lady Justice, said after on such run-in-“in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.” After a lifetime of observations and my own run-ins that still seems about right. The second thing the old man told me, and that may be reflected from the first idea, was an ageless adage which seemed entirely right in our claustrophobic old heavily Irish working class neighborhood, especially when the “shawlie social network” was on the prowl –“don’t air the family’s dirty linen in public.” Sound familiar in your family history?
Those two ideas come together in this film where a kid who made good as a big time, big city lawyer Hank (played by Robert Downey, Jr. of Ironman one million or whatever number have been produced and late of the now old time “brat pack”) is called back home to his estranged family after his mother died. While there his father, Judge Palmer, the longtime local district judge (played by seemingly ancient Robert Duvall which reminded me that to has been many moons since he first “loved the smell of napalm” in Apocalypse Now early in his career) who had meted out justice good and bad got into trouble, legal trouble, criminal trouble. The trouble was that a man whom the judge had originally lightly sentenced on an assault case against his girlfriend when released from that sentence went back and killed her and on the second trial the judge had thrown the book at him. That case had weighed heavily on his mind and so one night after the judge had buried his own wife he ran into that killer in a convenience store, followed him out and then ran over him. Simply justice.
Well not so simple since the judge believed that he had committed no crime, did not remember the event pleading duress, approaching senility, and a losing bout with cancer. And that is where long estranged Hank, the big time, big city hardball lawyer had to come in and save the day by defending his dad in court. Naturally there is much friction before the trial, generational friction, estrangement friction, that above-mentioned not airing dirty linen in public, and the hard fact that only grudgingly did the judge offer information to help defend himself. Well, the long and short of it was that the judge was found not guilty on the murder charge but got a four year sentence on manslaughter charges. That sentence was later commuted as his health worsened and he died with Hank at his side at the end of the film. That whole episode got Hank thinking though about how much he was still a small town boy. And got me thinking about those two things my grandfather told me.
DVD Review
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Judge, starring Robert Downey,Jr., Robert Duvall, 2014
A couple of things that I learned from my cranky old Irish Catholic grandfather, cranky once he had a stroke and had to be invalided out of Carver Fire Department that he dearly loved, that came to my mind when watching the film under review, Robert Downey, Jr.’s The Judge. First, my grandfather, or rather my grandfather and his people had been kicked out of Irish from nothing more than they had run out of luck. Run out of luck in that case being when the absentee Anglo-Irish landlord owner of the midget farm they were trying to survive on decided to call in their debts and not having any money when they resisted foreclosure the landlord went to Her Majesty’s court (this was back in the 19th century during benighted Queen Victoria’s time) about it the judge dismissed their concerns out of hand. Adding insult to injury that same judge when my grandfather and his kindred physically resisted eviction and wound up in gaol (jail) for some serious assault and battery charges the judge ordered them out of the country on penalty of a severe sentence. So the first lesson in life he told me was that while justice was blind, she was blind to injustice more often than not. I would translate that wisdom later to something the sardonic comedy Lenny Bruce, who had had a fistful of run-ins with Lady Justice, said after on such run-in-“in the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.” After a lifetime of observations and my own run-ins that still seems about right. The second thing the old man told me, and that may be reflected from the first idea, was an ageless adage which seemed entirely right in our claustrophobic old heavily Irish working class neighborhood, especially when the “shawlie social network” was on the prowl –“don’t air the family’s dirty linen in public.” Sound familiar in your family history?
Those two ideas come together in this film where a kid who made good as a big time, big city lawyer Hank (played by Robert Downey, Jr. of Ironman one million or whatever number have been produced and late of the now old time “brat pack”) is called back home to his estranged family after his mother died. While there his father, Judge Palmer, the longtime local district judge (played by seemingly ancient Robert Duvall which reminded me that to has been many moons since he first “loved the smell of napalm” in Apocalypse Now early in his career) who had meted out justice good and bad got into trouble, legal trouble, criminal trouble. The trouble was that a man whom the judge had originally lightly sentenced on an assault case against his girlfriend when released from that sentence went back and killed her and on the second trial the judge had thrown the book at him. That case had weighed heavily on his mind and so one night after the judge had buried his own wife he ran into that killer in a convenience store, followed him out and then ran over him. Simply justice.
Well not so simple since the judge believed that he had committed no crime, did not remember the event pleading duress, approaching senility, and a losing bout with cancer. And that is where long estranged Hank, the big time, big city hardball lawyer had to come in and save the day by defending his dad in court. Naturally there is much friction before the trial, generational friction, estrangement friction, that above-mentioned not airing dirty linen in public, and the hard fact that only grudgingly did the judge offer information to help defend himself. Well, the long and short of it was that the judge was found not guilty on the murder charge but got a four year sentence on manslaughter charges. That sentence was later commuted as his health worsened and he died with Hank at his side at the end of the film. That whole episode got Hank thinking though about how much he was still a small town boy. And got me thinking about those two things my grandfather told me.
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