Father and Son

The Judge is about a father, who is a judge, and his son, who is an attorney. Both father and son are strong-willed and pig-headed, but somewhere beneath all the public posturing are human beings who care about each other. Neither father nor son will back down from a conflict, but when push comes to shove, they have each other's backs. The movie centers around a trial over which the father presides and the son defends the accused, but the story is so much more than just that simple premise.

In the middle is a family story, three sons who are as completely dissimilar as most of our own families. The eldest son lost a potential professional career in baseball, the middle son is the beligerent lawyer, and the youngest son is developmentally disabled. Their interactions focus on a strong bond between them that isn't fully explained until toward the latter part of the film.

What's the best part of the movie is the ending, which is appropriate and completely right for what's come before. I'm not giving any other details about the film because in a coming of age film, it spoils the story to know too much before participating in the viewing. It's well worth the price of admission and reminds me of the long ago film with Jane Fonda and her father, the irascible Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond (1981).