No.203 : The Judge (2014)

The Judge at the IMDb

Alas this isn’t another film about Judge Dredd, but an overlong court room drama starting Robert Downey Jnr and Robert Duvall, who we recently saw in the more enjoyable The Outfit.

Downey plays Hank, a slick lawyer who will defend any client no matter how sleazy. He earns the big bucks and has a cute daughter, but his marriage has failed and he is estranged from his family. As a big case is about to close and just as Hank moves in for the kill, he gets a call to advise that his mother has died. The court adjourns and Hank heads back to his sleepy Indiana birthplace for the funeral.

He drives in a new truck, that looks for all the world as product placement, before meeting up with his two brothers, including a fat Vincent D’Onofrio, and his father Duvall, who was the town’s judge for 40 odd years. Hank has a drink and a squeeze with an attractive barmaid before meeting up with his old flame Vera Farmiga who you’ll know from ‘Up in the Air’. We learn that Hank went out to a concert one night and never came back, but fortunately Vera is most forgiving.

Hank gets a lift from Vera ,after falling off his bike, and he meets her daughter who just happens to be the barmaid he had kissyface with. She’s on break from law school and there is a brief suggestion that Hank may be her father.

Meanwhile damage is found to the front of Duvall’s car and he’s charged with killing a man by knocking him off his bike. It turns out the victim was a criminal whom Duvall had treated leniently but had gone onto kill a young girl. Duvall can’t remember the hit and run and is suffering from cancer and early onset dementia. Hank agrees to defend his Dad with the aid of Dax Shepard’s idiot lawyer, and they are soon up against Billy Bob Thornton, who has a score to settle against Hank.

Will the old man go down? Well what happens is…Objection! Watch it yourself or you can guess. You’ll probably get it right!

This was a decent effort but at 140 minutes it was too long. A lot of time was spend charting Duvall’s demise and to be honest I don’t need to see him shitting himself and getting showered down. It may have been a touching moment of weakness for a proud man, but I’d have been happy with a tell don’t show scenario here.

Hank’s journey was predictable as he started to see both sides of an argument to the extent that he was pondering taking over the judge’s chair at the end. The courtroom scenes were decent as the unbreakable case was slowly picked apart. There was too much of ’Objection your honour’ and too much latitude given when they started yelling out random stuff with the judge happy to see where it went.

The conclusion was balanced to some degree, with everyone winning but also losing, and with justice seeming to be served. Downey did his usual good show but if he donned the Iron Man armour half way though you wouldn’t be surprised. I could have done with more of Dax in his David Pleat suit, and it was a shame he didn’t get enough to do to earn ‘Employee of the Month’ this time around.
The will they won’t they love story didn’t go anywhere and the lovely Vera seemed a bit desperate.

There was some growth, some reconciliation and some redemption but alas too little editing. Trim an hour and you’d have a neat 90 minute drama rather than this meandering and bloated soap opera.

THE Tag Line : You are Judged to be Too Long!  67%

No. 135 : The Commuter (2018)

The Commuter at the IMDb

Liam Neeson takes time off from his busy schedule of looking for black people to beat up to make this routine, but decent thriller. If you have seen his ‘Die Hard on a plane’ thriller ’Non Stop’ you’ve pretty much seen this, as it is the same script with ‘plane’ cleverly changed to ‘train’.

Neeson plays the titular commuter and the opening credits show him making the same commute into New York through all weathers in a variety of jackets. Neeson does stretch himself with the part however, with his character being an Irish man who lives in America. He has range, you have to give him that.

He lives with his wife and teenage son and his quirk is that he reads old books to help his offspring with his schoolwork. This leads to him showing the odd bit of literary insight and something to talk about with fellow commuter, Mike out of ‘Breaking Bad’. It’s a shame Mike didn’t have a bigger part but seemingly he had a bus to catch.

The action all takes place over one day and on one train ride, so if you are looking for car chases and sex scenes this is not the film for you. Before he boards the fateful train we see Neeson sell insurance to a young couple and he reveals he lost everything in the credit crunch. He has only five years until retirement (must have had a tough paper round) and should have enough money to squeeze by if everything goes OK. Almost immediately he is pulled into the manager’s office and given the boot as he costs more than he brings in. Nice to see there’s none of that HR nonsense about giving people a warning and due process etc.

He heads to the pub where he meets former police partner Patrick Wilson and police chief Sam Neill. Wilson comes across nice and Neill a dick. Bet those positions are set in stone! After stiffing Wilson with the bar bill he heads home. Surely his day can’t get any worse? Of course it does, but first the lovely Vera Farmiga shows up and starts chatting to Neeson. He thinks she’s trying to chat him up but in reality she’s offering him $100k for finding a bag, as you do.

Cash strapped Neeson smells a rat but pockets the £25k deposit and starts looking for the elusive bag holder. We then get a long period were we meet the various commuters such as douche bag Wall Street broker Clem Fandango and a weasely ticket inspector who was at least a bit of fun.

Slowly the number of suspects reduces as Neeson gets involved in a few fist fights and rampant vandalism - it was just like the last train to Paisley Canal! As the train approaches its final destination, and with Neeson’s family held hostage, will he get the bag and free his loved ones? Will the rail company refund his ticket due to excessive delays and will the police’s geriatric recruitment programme save the day?

This was a decent effort in the ‘We’ve got a few stars with 10 minute gaps in their diaries - let’s churn out something quick’ genre. Neeson paints by numbers in his portrayal of a man let down by the system trying to save his family. At no point to you have any sympathy for his situation as you wait for the next choreographed punch up. You have more sympathy for the fellow commuters who have a beer soaked Irish man shouting ‘What’s in your bag’ at them with annoying regularity.

Farmiga has about five minutes on screen and Wilson and Neill much the same. The supporting cast do OK with thinly written parts and it was fun to see Clem Fandango say something other that ‘Steven, can you hear me?’

The overall premise was ridiculous. The hunted bag belonged to a witness and the baddies wanted it back before it was delivered to the cops. Fair enough, but with their resources and eyes on everything overview you’d have thought relying on a troubled commuter would be the worst plan possible. Clearly they weren’t shy about some blood letting so why not just blow up the train rather than hope that Neeson will deliver?

The film ramps up in the last 20 minutes with a pretty decent crash that many CGI pixels gave their lives for, followed by a siege that wasn’t as tense as the director was hoping for. There was a funny take on ‘I’m Spartacus’ and then an after the fact sequence where we catch up with Neeson which although somewhat pat, at least it gave us some closure.

If you went into town on a train to see ‘The Commuter’ at the cinema you would have regretted paying for the off peak travel but as a find on Amazon Prime it was a decent offering that stayed on the rails for the most part.

THE Tag Line : Worst Train Ride Since Jimmy Savile
Rating : 64%