Trumped-up Oscar bait

Robert Downey Jr. is in the same rarefied Hollywood air as Johnny Depp. Both men, insanely talented, toiled in relative obscurity -- as least in relation to their actual skills -- for years after early success, then latched onto midcareer blockbuster series (Pirates of the Caribbean and Iron Man, respectively) that turned them almost overnight into two of the biggest stars of the planet, with paychecks commensurate with such a designation. For The Avengers alone, Downey Jr. has copped to making upward of $50 million.

With the undying adoration of millions of fans the world over (no actor is a bigger draw at the Toronto International Film Festival then RDJr.), and bank accounts secured for multigenerations to come, both actors, hovering around the half-century mark, now have to find what the next phase of their careers might become. For Depp, that's meant a peculiar combination of director loyalty (I've already written extensively about how he and Tim Burton need to surgically remove themselves from each other), smaller indie projects (For No Good Reason), and the unfortunate continuance of bigger, ill-advised Hollywood star vehicles (the god-awful The Tourist, The Lone Ranger, and the next misbegotten Pirates sequels).

RDJr., meanwhile, has apparently decided to use this fame and unlimited career options to plot for the elusive Academy Award he has been twice nominated for, but never won. Not to fall prey to complete cynicism, but in David Dobkin's no-stone-unturned courtroom/family drama, RDJr. has seemingly found a vehicle that satisfies most of the standard Oscar components: Explosive father/son dynamic? Check. Bolstering by extraordinary ensemble cast, including a five-time Oscar nominee (who won it outright once)? Check. A too long drama that stops at almost nothing to bring us a steady stream of emotion lashing, good-humored comedy, and extra heavy-handed symbolism? Absolutely. A pivotal scene (or two) in which said actor gets to either a) take care of an infirm parent with whom they've had a previously discordant relationship, or b) sob for all they're worth in the emotional climax, indicating just exactly how much they love their aforementioned parent, despite their stream of protestations otherwise? You betcha.

RDJr. plays Hank Palmer, a wildly successful defense lawyer based out of Chicago who wins cases for his insanely rich, guilty-as-sin client base ("The truth is," he sneers, "innocent people can't afford me"). When he learns of his mother's death he is forced to return home to small-town Indiana, where his taskmaster town judge father Joseph (Robert Duvall), and two brothers -- Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio), the oldest, a former baseball prodigy forced after a car accident to stay in town and give up his dream of the majors; and Dale (Jeremy Strong), the somewhat simple-minded younger brother, who serves as the family historian with his giant pile of (extremely handy) super 8mm films he's forever splicing together in the family basement -- still reside. There is also Samantha (Vera Farmiga), the former high-school love interest, whose college-age daughter (Leighton Meester) Hank discovers shortly after making out with her may or may not be his own flesh and blood.

Hank's plan is to stay the absolute minimum amount of time he needs to, so he can get back to Chicago for his failing marriage and loving young daughter (Emma Tremblay), but when the judge gets involved in a deadly hit-and-run accident the rainy night of his wife's burial, killing a man he once sentenced for murder no less, and claiming to remember nothing of the incident, Hank is eventually forced to take his father's case, aided by a well-meaning but bumbling local attorney (Dax Shepard).

It should go without saying that this close proximity between father and son leads to an eventual ice-melting and all sorts of melodramatic revelations, but to the film's credit it doesn't entirely gloss over the wringing, emotional upheaval of watching one of your parents become weak, infirm, and even incontinent. One of the movie's strongest scenes is nearly wordless, with Hank having to pick up and clean his father, after he has soiled himself trying to make it to the bathroom in time.

It's also not afraid to throw a few other odd monkey wrenches into its otherwise genial mix -- the potential incest being but one example -- but make no mistake about the film's actual intentions, nor why an actor the caliber of RDJr. would be so taken with the project as to become not just the star but also an executive producer for it. It is designed, from stem to stern, to earn him some more hardware, and to that end, I fear it's going to fall pretty far short of its goal. It's not that he's not deserving, exactly, but in taking the role of yet another smooth-talking, fast-thinking, arrogant jerk -- albeit one who has to learn humility at the side of his sick, murder-suspect, estranged father -- he has made it simply too easy for himself.

Hank, the absolutely brilliant and gifted lawyer, whose rabble-rousing teenagehood culminated in the very car crash that cost his older brother his MLB dream, treads dangerously close to RDJr.'s own well-documented early years of self-destructive behavior. He is also, essentially, the same kind of character as Tony Stark, the playboy billionaire who has a penchant for red and yellow armor. It's the kind of thing RDJr. can do in his sleep by this point, and therefore, not nearly enough of a stretch to generate attention for a film that otherwise falls pretty far short of its goal. Given the nature of the talent involved, it's hardly a complete disgrace, but I have a hard time imagining the film is going to end up earning its star the golden statuette for which he's so clearly gunning for.

MovieStyle on 10/10/2014