Robert Duvall is nominated this year for playing the title character in this courtroom drama.  The strong patriarch with three sons with different personalities, a death on a fishing boat, Robert Friggin Duvall; impossible not to draw comparisons to ‘The Godfather’.  I’d still like to see Duvall, Robert Downey Jr, and Vincent D’Onofrio in an ‘epic’ family drama (this one has a smaller budget and gets a little melodramatic at times).

Quick backstory here is RDJ is a hotshot Chicago defense attorney who is pulled back to his small Indiana hometown to defend his father (Duvall) on a murder charge.  Another completely unfair but can’t help it reference is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.  Everything in this film is building up to the courtroom showdown between Downey and Duvall.  It pays off in my opinion.  With Gene Hackman in retirement, this is a nice potential bookend to the career of one of our great American actors.