I love that Robert Duvall is still taking roles, and that he's still headlining movies. I will say, though, that RDJr's look and posture kind of instantly makes me lose my interest in this picture. It doesn't matter that I generally like Robert a lot. The undone tie, the hands in his pockets, and the lack of an expression on either man is somewhat off-putting. I keep expecting it to be a more childish/snarky version of Shoot from the Hip, and we all know how that turned out:
The composition is actually nice - I appreciate how the leads are positioned in regards to one another, and the look of the courtroom scene around them. They might have achieved a stronger balance of light and dark if they'd framed this slightly higher - seriously, the bottom of the frame is Downey's crotch - and I think that the image would have been more pleasing for it. Then again, maybe it wouldn't have helped much, seeing as the brown is deeper than the white is...
But the bratty pose and that lame-ass tagline really sort of do me in. "Defend your honor." Really? That's kind of terrible as it is, but if Mr. Downey Jr is playing a lawyer who's defending Duvall's judge character then it's somehow even worse than just a bad combination of words. The only interesting thing about that tagline is that they put a closing period at the end of it, as if it were a sentence.
It is nice to see RDJ in something other than film franchise material(still want him to be Iron Man though) and an old school melodrama like this sounds fine. I do like the rich dark tones of the courtroom fixtures, they're my kind of jam.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that tagline is pretty lazy-how about something like this: "When it comes to family, there's no law and order!":)
Well, the dark is great, but I'd prefer it was balanced out by light tones, too. And yes, I'm so happy that RDjr hasn't disappeared permanently into blockbuster land - I had hoped that he wouldn't...
DeleteI actually *just* found a way better poster for it, but light sources are ruining my photos. Maybe I'll do a follow up next week, or perhaps I'll just send you the image instead...