You're just a boy from Indiana who's gonna do whatever he has to to pretend he's not.

Trudging through the online reviews of this film, I was a little sceptical when I sat down to watch The Judge, regardless of the stellar cast that had been put together to create the movie. However I was pleasantly surprised to find that the film was much better than the critics had unfairly portrayed the film to be.

One of the most understated films of 2014, The Judge see’s Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr and Oscar winner Robert Duvall play a father and son who’s tumultuous relationship is one of the main driving points of the film. Their love hate relationship draws audiences in and invests them in the story, leaving them wanting to know what could possibly have happened for a father and son to not even be able to talk to each other without it escalating to an argument.

It’s no surprise that Duvall was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at almost all of the award ceremonies the year the film came out, sadly missing out on the Oscar to JK Simmons for his amazing performance in Whiplash. The Judge showcases Duvall’s undeniably incredible talents portraying the hard to please father that’s overly critical of the son who is most similar to himself.

The story is a bit all over the place, with a vast number of side stories, however, Downey Jr’s fantastic performance stitches it all together as well as bringing humour to the story. As he manages to keep his character strong and unwilling to break under the pressure put on him by his father it shows us the audience that Downey Jr has matured into a solid actor over the last few years.

The story is well written ranging from tear jerker to light hearted in a heartbeat, and even at points when the film tackles tricky subjects there is an injection of humour to shy away from it becoming too serious. Some have criticised this saying that in the circumstances that Downey Jr’s character is in it doesn’t make sense for the audience to be laughing at him the entire way through. I however think that this worked to the advantage of the film with the wittiness of Hank really carries the story and makes it seem more realistic.

One thing that I will however agree with from the bad review is the length of the film. Hauling in at 141 minutes this two hour epic has some issues with pace, at times lagging with quite a slow start to the story.

My advice would be to ignore all the criticism that the film has received and give the film a go, don’t let a few critics spoil it for you.