Review by Gene
The Judge is perhaps the first film of 2014 that is pretty clear Oscar-bait. Robert Downey Jr., playing defense lawyer Hank Palmer, has made no secret of how invested in this project he was. While on occasion it touches the height of its potential, The Judge spends most of the film stuck in mediocrity.
Review by Gene
The star power present in this film alone should make this movie nearly a household name to any good student of film history. Couple that with the typical drama of any gangster story worth it’s salt and you’ve got the makings of a great one. Kevin Costner stars in this 1987 release of the 1959 original as Eliot Ness, a federal agent of the treasury department determined to bring down Chicago crime boss Al Capone, played by (who else) Robert De Niro. Set in (when else) 1930 prohibition era in (where else) Chicago, there is as much star-power as fire-power in this movie. Sean Connery (Jim Malone) and Andy Garcia (George Stone) join Costner and De Niro along with the familiar faces of Billy Drago, Charles Martin Smith, Patricia Clarkson and Brad Sullivan.
