TIFF 2014: With ‘The Judge,’ Robert Downey Jr. makes a new case

Clad in orange pants and a fitted pink-purple T-shirt, Robert Downey Jr. put his feet up on a couch at a hotel here Thursday afternoon and minced no words in describing what it was like to shoot “The Judge” -- a legal and family melodrama that takes Downey back to his roots -- during a phase when he’s been Tony Starking it up in several “Iron Man” and “Avengers” movies.

“It was a really nice, long intermission between outright capitalism,” he said. “Capitalism with a flair, but still, capitalism.”

A few hours later, Downey was unveiling the fruits of that interregnum at the Toronto International Film Festival’s opening night, as he helped unveil David Dobkin’s new movie that has him starring as an unrepentant Chicago lawyer forced to confront some old ghosts.

Giving an introduction to costar Robert Duvall, Downey engaged in a little of his mix of swagger and self-deprecation, appearing on stage (this time in a dark tie) to say that a movie is “only as good as its title character -- unfortunately.”

In the film, Downey stars as Hank Palmer, a hyper-successful shark going through a divorce who is called back to his hometown in rural Indiana upon the death of mother. But that tragedy, it turns out, is just a device to bring him home, where the real drama soon begins as his father (Duvall), a righteous (and self-righteous) judge separated from his son by an emotional gap as wide as an Indiana cornfield, is accused of murder. That sets into motion a set of legal and familial maneuvering and revelations, with plenty of courtroom and living-room showdowns to match.

“A bygone Hollywood,” “a lot going on” and “a half-hour too long” were some of the snippets of comments heard as the crowd exited the festival’s flagship Roy Thomson Hall on Thursday night. The film’s old-school values -- there are big revelations and confrontations and even some courtroom-gasping -- will be refreshing to some and jarring to others, and indeed that battle already seems to be playing out among online commentators.

The filmmakers acknowledged it too -- before the screening Dobkin noted that it’s “not the kind of movie that gets made often in Hollywood.”

In an interview, Dobkin noted that he conceived of the film -- he came up with the idea and brought it to Downey and producer wife Susan to develop it -- after the death of his mother a number of years ago, and contemplating both the regret and resilience that can follow a tragic milestone life that. “It really is a story of second chances,” he said.

Commercially, the question for Warner Bros. when the studio brings out the film in early October (my colleague Glenn Whipp will be tackling the awards side) is whether it can cast the right net. Downey’s core fans from these superhero days are not necessarily interested first and foremost in a family melodrama, though his appeal is strong among women, who would likely be a big part of the target audience.

Even the film’s naysayers, it should be said, are applauding Downey, who deploys his trademark motormouth to dramatic effect, much as he did earlier in his career. (An old flame played by Vera Farmiga calls Hank out for “hyper-verbal vocabulary vomit,” underlining how a little of Downey’s own persona creeps into the character.)

During the interview, the actor was similarly outspoken about his place in the Hollywood firmament after so many years, and billions, in the Iron Man suit.

“The Stark persona started eating itself,” he said. “Did you see the first one? It wasn’t like that, He was disturbed. It was heart, heart, heart. It hasn’t gotten away from me but it’s a giant wheel and I’m on the wheel with it,” He paused. “And this movie, where it’s about real people but the themes are so big. It’s one way to take a really good break.”

Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT