There is a category of movies that are not so good, but you just don’t hate them, just like Jon Feiru’s gourmet light comedy "The Chef of Fallen Soul" some time ago, and "Papa Judge" is also a coincidence. Both of the films have Robert Downing Jr. I didn't expect much from this movie, maybe it was the reason for the lower expectation value, but I thought it was pretty good. In the new films of this year, few films are so calm, do not play gimmicks and flowers, and tell stories with a down-to-earth narrative.
I know that many people will hate this movie because its plot is too clichéd, it is simply the cliché of an American family redemption film followed by another, father-son relationship, first love girlfriend, return to hometown, wife cheating, brother knot, indifferent Family relationship, reconcile everything at the end. So, you can really hate such a film that is a collection of popular movies, but if this movie is an old movie 20 or 30 years ago, I believe that many young fans will not hesitate to regard it as a classic. . It’s not a bad time, but it uses too many outdated sections. Although there is nothing new, it has a very positive attitude. It has a retro and old film temperament, a bit simple, a bit old-fashioned, from this point of view , It is very attractive.
Although the screenwriter wrote a lot of clichés, he still tried to surprise the audience, such as the final judgment of the court, such as who is the father of the daughter of his first love girlfriend, and at the same time, in the story, he also tried to blur the boundaries between morality and law. , In private to public, or in love with the law, and then integrate the dramatic tension of the father-son relationship into the trial between the defendant and the lawyer. The knots between brothers caused by old things, the family wrestling between father and son, their own marriage crisis and the first girlfriend waiting in the same place, the father’s aging disease and a lawsuit, the screenwriter is only organized, but occasionally The sudden burst of information will make some viewers uncomfortable.
In fact, this is the kind of film with no ambitions, but it is more attractive than those Oscar-series films, like last year's "Filo Mina", "Nebraska" and "August: Osage County". In order to bid for the Olympics, the story is stuffed into the Oscar-type propositional composition template, which will make people lose surprises. They are all carved out of a mold. The rhythm of the ups and downs can be calculated with a stopwatch, just like my stereotypes in history. Arts. It's not that you can't write anything good in an eight-legged essay. No, it's just that you see a lot of propositional essays of this kind. If you look at it easily and do your own thing occasionally, you will feel more cordial and comfortable. The story of "Papa Judge" is enough to be stuffed into a template to make an Oscar proposition, but the creator still chose this simple and old-school narrative mode, which is good for me.
There are many supporting roles in this film, but the director has no intention of giving everyone the opportunity to exert their acting skills. Unlike Ryan Murphy's "Ordinary Heart", everyone has the opportunity to break out of their acting skills. The focus of the film is Robert Downing Jr. and Robert Duvall. Even Billy Bob Thornton, a good friend of the director, had no chance. The lawyer he played was only sitting in court and winking. The reaction shots looked like the American drama "Ice Blood Storm" came directly to the set of soy sauce. Due to the character requirements of the character, Robert Duvall kept acting, but in the end he was able to restrain his tears with such extreme restraint and control, so the acting skills are naturally needless to say. It’s a pity that in the end I didn’t see Robert Downing Jr. put on an iron suit against the judge’s repeated opposition. Anyway, watching his acting skills shaped by Iron Man makes people think which sequel this is. Or rumored. Of course, Downey is an acting school. No one doubts this. It’s just that the problem of being stereotyped by the role is terrible. When you get used to his every move, no matter what he plays again in the future, it’s hard to take it seriously, and then never again. I'm not sorry for Edward Norton's refusal to play Marvel's Hulk.
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