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Vandals damage Iron Mike statue, steal its rifle ... Calendar: Friday, Oct. 17 ... Calendar: Saturday, Oct. 18 ... Vandals damage Iron Mike statue, steal its rifle ... Calendar: Friday, Oct. 17 ... MOVIES Cast makes 'The Judge' worth watching By Chris Honore for Revels DailyTidings.com By Chris Honore for Revels Posted Oct. 16, 2014 @ 12:01 am By Chris Honore for Revels Posted Oct. 16, 2014 @ 12:01 am » Social News In “Anna Karenina,” Leo Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” For Hollywood screenwriters, this aphorism has been a theme to be mined in all its variations and vagaries. Family dysfunction is the stuff of melodrama, possessing countless facets, each to be burnished, some more compelling and lustrous than others. The recently released “The Judge” is all about familial and personal dysfunction, and none of it is very original. Begin with the prodigal son, Hank Palmer (Robert Downey), a hotshot Chicago defense lawyer (“Everyone wants Atticus Finch until there’s a dead hooker in your hot tub”) who lives large, has a sweet daughter, a gated house, and a wife he’s about to divorce. He is also estranged from his father, a small-town judge (Robert Duvall) in Carlinville, Ind., their unforgiven breach reaching back decades. Hank, sitting with a high-roller client at the beginning of a trial, receives a call telling him that his mother has unexpectedly passed away and he should come home, something that Hank grudgingly does, while bridling at the thought of dealing with his father and all the memories of his earlier life — big-city guy returns to his small, bucolic hometown. Sound familiar? “The Judge,” as is soon revealed, is a brimming well of secrets and a cresting wave of unfinished business. There’s more to be revealed than simply Hank’s abiding issues with his old man, whom he doesn’t call dad but Judge. Hank has a younger brother, Dale (Jeremy Strong), dealing with, or so it seems, Asperger’s; an older brother, Glen (Vincent D’Onofrio), whose dreams of a career in pro baseball were shattered in a car wreck when Hank and Glen were teens; and not to forget Hank’s high school sweetheart, Samantha (Vera Farmiga), who has a 20-something daughter, causing Hank to wonder if he’s the father. But wait, not only are there layers of vitriol between father and middle son, and a funeral to be held for a much-loved wife and mother, but on the night of the funeral the Judge has a traffic accident resulting in the death of a low-life ex-con who had recently appeared in the Judge’s courtroom. Just as Hank is preparing to get back to Chicago on the first available flight, his phone rings. The Judge is charged with first-degree murder. And thus Hank is reeled back in, feeling a responsibility to see that his father doesn’t go to jail. Clearly, there’s more personal baggage in this film than can be found in a hotel lobby. And where do Hank and the Judge unpack all of this dysfunction? The trial, naturally, beginning with a big-city defense constructed by Hank and one denigrated and resisted and ignored by that crusty, hardline but folksy denizen of the bench for 40 some years, the Judge. Of course, the template used for “The Judge” is one of reconciliation. And though Duvall and Downey do their best to convincingly convey their mutual antipathy for one another, it is self-evident that Hank will find his way back not only to Carlinville, but to the embrace of his family of origin, to include the Judge and, tentatively, Samantha. That’s not a spoiler, but a given conveyed in the film’s trailer. As for the cast: superb, from Downey to Duvall to Farmiga. Added bonus: Billy Bob Thornton portraying an Indiana prosecutor intent on putting the Judge in prison for life. In concert, they make this stuffed burrito of a movie worth watching.     By Chris Honore for Revels DailyTidings.com By Chris Honore for Revels Posted Oct. 16, 2014 @ 12:01 am » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with DailyTidings.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Alerts Email alerts RSS feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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