The Judge (15, 141 mins)

The Judge (15, 141 mins)

Director: David Dobkin

2 stars

The first of this year's award season wannabes arrives with a solid pedigree in front of the camera, but this highly polished yet plodding drama is likely to find itself quickly forgotten, an also-ran at best.

The star factor is provided by Robert Downey Jr., playing Hank Palmer, a high-powered Chicago lawyer who has no qualms about defending the indefensibly guilty, as long as they're able to afford him.

But Hank's personal life is not as successful, and he's in the process of divorcing his wife when he learns his mother has died.

This sends him back to his small town home in Indiana and on a collision course with his estranged father, Joseph (Robert Duvall), who also happens to be the town judge.

There's practically a mini-series worth of setup going into this first half hour or more, as characters and subplots are introduced and you really wish it would get to the point.

There's Vincent D'Onofrio as Hank's older brother Glen, with a past there waiting to be explored.

There's the teenage sweetheart (Vera Farmiga) who never left town, who Hank might be thinking about rekindling things with.

And when no other way can be thought of to end a scene, the film turns to Hank's developmentally challenged younger brother (Jeremy Strong) for a cheap laugh.

Finally we get to what forms the crux of the story, when Joseph is arrested for apparently knocking down and killing a man on a bike.

The physical evidence certainly puts him at the scene of the crime, but the situation is made more complicated by the victim being a criminal who Joseph once treated leniently and who subsequently murdered a young woman in the town.

As Hank takes on the role of defending his father, and with this amount of plot going on, The Judge should be able to generate no end of meaty dramatic scenarios.

But there's a sheen of insincerity about the film as a whole, one that's only very occasionally punctured by moments of genuine truth.

Visually, it's wildly inconsistent from scene to scene, with an irritating style that favours streams of sunlight blazing in through the windows, at times making it look horribly artificial.

It can often be sloppily put together, but for all that it lingers and meanders, there are a number of solid scenes and it's generally fairly agreeable.

But in the end it's just like any number of guy-goes-home-again dramas, only with the salacious addition of a not especially compelling murder case.

As movies dealing in domestic family woes go, there's not much here we haven't seen before.

Joseph and Hank spend the whole time barking at each other, before and after the charges have been brought.

These exchanges fail to stir any particular emotional investment for either character, surely the essential ingredient if we're to have any interest in whether they can overcome their differences.

This is Downey in serious mode, still fast-talking and slick but reasonably genuine and less glib than his usual approach.

And Duvall is watchable, but he's basically playing the same ornery old goat he's been peddling for the last 20 years.

You also get Billy Bob Thornton as the prosecutor, but he doesn't really get to have as much fun as you might have hoped, given how dry and lethargic the courtroom stuff is.

To see how much fun you can have, and how better to demonstrate complex and compelling characterisation with small-town courtroom antics, you'd be a lot better off sticking with My Cousin Vinny.

See it if you liked: August: Osage County, A Civil Action, The Lincoln Lawyer

Palo Alto (15, 100 mins)

Director: Gia Coppola

2 stars

James Franco's collection of short stories, based on the experiences and tales he picked up in the titular California town where he grew up, makes for a drab indie drama on its translation to the big screen.

It's a miserable look at teen isolation and discontent, with Emma Roberts in love with one of her classmates (impressive newcomer Jack Kilmer) while another pal seems intent on a path of self-destruction.

Franco himself appears as a teacher with whom Roberts has a flirtation, and he's well suited to such a slimy role; these are hopeless, narcissistic people who are just no fun to spend time with.

That may well be the point, but the laboured way in which it's hammered home and sense of glum familiarity makes it something a slog.

See it if you liked: The Art of Getting By, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Brick

The Best of Me (12A, 118 mins)

Director: Michael Hoffman

2 stars

Much like you can count on Woody Allen to deliver a film a year, we're now pretty much guaranteed an annual effort from the pen of cheese-monger extraordinaire Nicholas Sparks.

His latest features James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan as former high school sweethearts who return to their small town home when an old friend dies.

The conflict comes from whatever drove them apart 20 years earlier, which we gradually find out in flashback - she with college plans and he a physics-loving nice guy from a family of hillbillies!

The formula is all in place, with golden sunsets, a wee bit of danger and not a shred of the unpredictable, but the actors are watchable and the story engages in a silly, soapy way that never approaches reality.

It turns particularly daft in an endless final third that feels like a whole other film has been tacked on, but it's not the worst of Sparks, so take from that what you will.

See it if you liked: The Notebook, Safe Haven, The Lucky One