Will someone please explain to me how such a stellar cast can wind up in such a miscarriage of movie justice? I mean, it’s Robert Downey Jr., for heavens sake, along with Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga and Billy Bob Thornton. You need a really bad script and an inept director to show some of the greatest actors of our time in such a bad light. So much for The Judge.

At first glance, The Judge looks, sounds and feels like a John Grisham knock-off, but you soon realize it lacks the author’s believability and clever plot twists. It’s basically the story of a slick, Chicago attorney whose name could have been Tony Stark, for all the self important wise cracks and take downs Downey is given. He’s called back to small town USA to attend his mother’s funeral, where he tangles with his brothers and finds himself trying to defend his estranged father, (Duvall) a rigid judge who is accused of lethal hit and run.

The audience is way ahead of these lazily drawn characters from the very beginning. It’s impossible to get emotionally involved with them — they all seem to lack a dimension or two. I put the blame squarely on director, David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers and Shanghai Knights) who also is co-credited with the story. Dobkin should be convicted of cinematic negligence for completely wasting Thornton as opposing counsel, and for the overuse of gross body fluids to punctuate both comedy and drama.

And it’s not just the cast that’s been wasted: Apparently the great Janusz Kaminski was instructed to shoot The Judge in the overly saturated colors and obvious camera angles of a basic cable TV movie, and Thomas Newman was allowed to compile every cliche’d score device in one film. An angelic chorus wafting when someone dies? Really?

Okay, in spite all this, a modicum of pleasure can be derived from watching Robert Downey Jr in action, sans super hero suit. And Vera Farmiga, as the floaty, flirty ex-girlfriend, is always fun. But if you have a monthly cinematic allowance, squandering it on The Judge would be completely out of order.

Rated R

2 Hours 22 Minutes