An A-list top-line double billing and a very impressive supporting cast can’t drag this creakily old-fashioned life-lessons yarn out of the realms of the utterly ordinary. Robert Downey Jr plays hot-shot attorney Henry “Hank” Palmer, forced to defend his estranged small-town judge father Joseph (Robert Duvall), who is hauled up on a murder/manslaughter charge in the wake of his wife’s funeral. The judge has no memory of running down a recently released convict, but the blood on the front of his car suggests otherwise. A distaste for Hank’s snake-oil city ways means that Joseph faces the very real possibility of conviction, unless his black sheep son can persuade him not to take the stand – something that goes against honest Joe’s diehard belief that only the guilty refuse to testify.
What starts out as a Grisham-y thriller soon descends into On Golden Pond stodge, as Hank’s home town works its folksy magic on the prodigal son, and old loves and rivalries resurface with breast-beating, tear-jerking results. For a while, the performances hold it all together, Downey nicely twitchy, Duvall growlingly deadpan – a scene in which Hank deals with his sick father’s incontinence is particularly well-handled, tender and touching. But as the verdict draws closer, the sentimental silliness and courtroom cliches pile up, leaving us with the feeling that it’s co-writer and director David Dobkin (best known for Wedding Crashers) who can’t handle the truth.
