Judges (2006) User Reviews

Time better spent flossing your cats teeth

[dave-847 · 2/10 · 2 May 2006]

The plot is rocky. The acting is somewhere south of a Jr. High School play. The cinematography is not bad but it looks like it was cut with a machete. I couldn't decide of this was an intentionally hokey flick or if the people behind it actually thought they were making a good film. Think Death Valley Days meets Mayberry RFD. People running around in a 'lawless' modern town wearing quick-draw 6 gun rigs. It has more than its fair share of 'cutsey' stuff. Picture the Good Guys pulling up to an old farm house, and parking the Ford Mustang right in front of a hitching rail. Picture the clerk in a hotel watching an obviously western (hemisphere) movie sporting a Japanese sound track but with English sub-titles. It's all really strange but might be improved if watching it while partaking in a little peyote. It's a real curiosity with modern parallels to every western movie cliché you can think of. There's even a modern version of the good hearted dance-hall girl, AND a twanging Jew's-harp in the soundtrack. Really! If someone brings this to your home for a Saturday night movie session, tell 'em your DVD player died.

a really bad movie!

[slarinmallachin · 2/10 · 9 August 2009]

It's sad when you can see what a movie was attempting to do, and it is quite obvious that it fell far far short of the mark. Film students should take this as a lesson and a warning. Would be graduate has an idea. He wants total control. So he writes, directs, produces, his cinematic masterpiece all by himself. Usually, his concept is far beyond his budget. Usually he writes an overblown script full of every tag line he can come up with. Usually, he is more interested in the grand sweep of the story rather than on the nitty gritty of working with actors on individual scenes. Usually, he ends up with a movie that is feeble in it's attempt to create miracles on a tiny budget. Usually, he ends up with a series of encounters (we cannot do justice by calling them scenes) that feel like they were written by a 12 year old. And usually he ends up with badly acted scenes that fail to grab the viewer. When you look at Judges from this perspective you can immediately tell it's just the usual fare.

Modern Spaghetti-Western shot in a comic-book style

[tj_hands · 5/10 · 15 June 2006]

Have you ever seen Kill Bill? Allow me to point out that it was shot in a "Comic Book" style, i.e., EVERYTHING was exaggerated: from the dialogue to the action sequences, to the cinematography, the music and even the characters themselves are exaggerated. The reason why is that most comic books (that I have read anyway) have characters that are bigger than life and the themes are exaggerated perceptions of reality. So naturally, these type of films are going to seem kind of cheesy. Why? Because it is a fable. Nothing about it is based on reality. There are no mutants saving us from the destruction of other mutants bent on world domination, no struggling journalist who possesses spider-like capabilities, and no superhuman that can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and so far I have not seen a vigilante dressed up in a bat costume…well, except for Halloween, maybe.

Try to make a comic book based on the movie "Crash". It's not going to work.

My point is "Judges", like "Kill Bill" was shot in this fashion…an homage to the spaghetti western with a modern flair shot in a comic book fashion.

The only difference is, Mr. Tarantino has had a few features under his belt, had a professional Hollywood cast and crew and is backed up financially by the Weinsteins.

Mr Walker has only made one feature and only had the financial help of family and friends, and had his fellow film students as his cast and crew. The majority of the people involved in this feature were very green when it came to feature films. That being said, I think Mr. Walker did a great job with his first feature film. I have seen worse come from the seasoned "Hollywood professionals" than this newbie director from Virginia.

a big piece of crap!

[bergersenta · 1/10 · 19 May 2006]

Avoid this crap at all costs. Bad script, bad directing, bad acting, bad editing, bad sound, and bad music. Get the idea? This movie tries to be western flavored, it's not. It tries to be hard core violent, it's not. It tries to present a fresh look at an old genre, it doesn't. The actors try there best, and my heart goes out to them. But with such inane material to work with it's hard to make something shine. To me this has all of the looks of a "fresh outta film school gonna set the world on fire" first attempt. Freshmen film makers often bite off more that they, or their budget, can chew. The best thing they can do is to take a few steps back, reassess what is possible, and work within their limited budget the next time out.

Maybe a "B" Movie!

[russutd · 21 May 2006]

The acting was not believable. The music was as if the composer just bought GarageBand and wanted to have every genre of music in the movie. The sound effects are out of place (probably came from a CD of sound effects) and are overly done. The only interesting character is possibly the barber (who tends to remind me of Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday in Tombstone). As a student of film, I would have turned this movie off in the first 10 minutes since I requested to watch the whole thing, I did. The dialog was predictable and anticlimactic. I am not sure if it was my copy of the DVD, but there were lots of breaks in the audio that made it seems like its on the editing end. The voice dubs were noticeable with no ambient sounds in the scene to blend them in. One thing that stood out was the sounds of the footsteps, which there were a lot of. The movie should have been called Footsteps, because that's one thing I will remember - the shuffling of feet across gravel, the creaking of the wooden floors as someone was walking across, etc. These should have been blended in more with the editing. According to IMDb this movie was made for $150k. I have seen better movies made for less. It appears they, and I mean the director, writer, producer and editor (which is all the same), were trying for a Firefly type of story (minus the space travel and foreign languages - which given more money they probably would have had in there). But seeing how this is Mr. Walker's first full length feature movie, I imagine he will grow from it and learn from the mistakes and improve. Not sure if a sequel is needed.

A whole lotta stinking

[ugarte112 · 1/10 · 18 May 2006]

I can see where the film makers were going with this. But they never really reach their destination. It's supposed to be a homage to Spaghetti westerns albeit set in a sort of mythical modern time frame." But unfortunately it fall short in its attempt. It doesn't have that gritty realism that spaghetti westerns are known for. The characters are not vile and desperate enough like their Italian western counterparts. And, failing these two points, it lacks the humor of a successful parody. In fact it looks like they intended to make a serious film, but upon completion realized they had missed the mark so far that it couldn't possibly be taken seriously. Unfortunately, they also missed the humor mark by a mile. A whole lotta bad movie!

Manure on a stick. Only worse.

[daverpdx · 1/10 · 2 December 2006]

Sadly IMDb does not allow me to rate Judges lower than 1. What a shame. This ghastly movie is so bad that I actually turned the damned thing off well before the ending. The script had a few bright moments, but the directing, editing, acting, audio quality, and especially timing on line delivery was so abhorrent as make Judges utterly unbearable.

Judges was advertised as being like a modern day comic book style western, but in reality was nothing of the sort. What it is most like is dog poop on the bottom of your shoe. You can try to pretend it is okay, but it just keeps on stinking.

Why video stores think it is okay to carry this kind of crap with constant gaps in the audio and worse than high school drama class acting is beyond me. We rent movies in order to see something better that what is on television. But Judges is worse than the most pathetic SciFi Channel original. I intend to demand my money back from Hollywood Video.

Good Independent Western

[Forbe · 8/10 · 26 June 2006]

I really liked it. Sure, it had problems, but I wasn't expecting a major studio polished offer. Soundtrack was great, most of the acting was at least passable. I thought the location shots added to the tone of the film well. I like spaghetti westerns, especially "Once Upon a Time in the West", and Judges tried hard to capture that (and did an all right job).

For me, the biggest problem was just not enough development of everyone in the film. The 15+ main characters are very well-varied (especially the Afrodeesiac and the Barber), and beg for more screen time and back story, but with a 90 minute film, that's just not possible. Maybe that will be fixed in Judges 2. Looking forward to it . . .

Judges... rent it, watch alone & enjoy

[telemental · 10/10 · 1 November 2006]

What is up with the bad reviews? I found this movie entertaining and felt the actors and direction superb and flawless. Its a true joy to see a movie without the same major actors over and over again.

Oh yeah.. its campy, duh. Whoever writes that its "Kill Bill" or its told... comic book style... I don't know what they're smoking but they need to spend a little more $$$ on their dope.

And it doesn't take a film student to see care was taken in photography. Great writing and loved the DVD extra features.

Thanks go out to everyone involved in making this movie a pleasure to watch! AND GLAD I WATCHED BEFORE BLOWING IT OFF ON PREVIOUS REVIEWS.

Highly enjoyable

[fearmaker · 7/10 · 30 April 2006]

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this film going in. I'm not a huge fan of westerns and don't know that I've ever seen an indie western. But after watching I was pleasantly surprised. A fan of the "bad guy" I really enjoyed the performances of Paul Ricioppo as "Sonny" and especially Terry Jernigan as "the Barber". I thought it was clever having modern day cowboys carrying six shooters and speaking straight out of the 1800's while driving Mustangs and having showdowns in the alley behind a 70's disco club. Makes you wonder, what if justice today was like the Old West. Maybe you challenge the guy to takes too many items through the express lane at Wal-Mart to an old fashioned duel.

This indie was pretty good for a straight-to-DVD movie that are usually reserved for horror films starring an actor no one really cares to see anymore. Instead, there were some refreshing new faces (Sean Doherty and DJ Perry) in a well crafted film. It didn't have to hide its lack of budget in dark shadows or flash gratuitous nudity to get people to say, "well at least that chick got nekkid".

Listen, the story won't blow you away so don't try comparing it to Tombstone or summer blockbusters and yes I think it could have been even better, but it does provide some laughs, a little action and some interesting characters in a movie that is a much needed change from the typical straight-to-DVD garbage that even Hollywood is putting out.

Fun and Entertaining

[emily-171 · 9/10 · 2 June 2005]

I saw this film at a private screening, so I guess that's why there aren't any other votes up yet. I thought the film was fun and entertaining. It's not too serious, but well thought-out-- which is a breath of fresh air for a first-time feature director. The idea of a modern-day spaghetti western is innovative, especially when crappy horrors seem to be engulfing the big screen.

I heard the film was pretty low-budget, but you couldn't tell (lighting/ cinematography was professional). It's a cool story that will stick with you--- if you are into independent film or just something different from the usual Hollywood clones, this is a must see.

Kudos to my favorite character-- Sonny King. I haven't ever seen him before, but the guy's got great talent.

Only good and evil no peace

[civilwarnc · 10/10 · 7 September 2006]

This is a very good independent film I give it a 5 star rating b/c it's a comic feel to it and each character has a passed that connects to Sonny King! Like Iron Joe, Buddy Colt, and Danny Strong. Hired by the original leader of the "Judges" then was over thrown by Sonny King, ask help threw theses men three men to come back and take over the town and restore order. Not for peace but for good and not evil. You have to decide what side you belong to either good or evil. This is defiantly the best performance for DJ Perry and Terry Jernigan in their work for this film as well in Wicked Spring, it seems like they can't never get a long by always being enemies to each other in there movies lol. But overall it's a very good film I like it a lot.

5 stars!

Judges is cool!

[aziza-2 · 7/10 · 9 May 2006]

Judges is a very unique film. Mixing in a comic book feel with Western and with an old fashioned story line of good vs evil. The actors were great, I especially liked DJ Perry because he carried a strong presence on screen and he played a suave character. The color schemes used in the film were perfect and it really caught my attention and the western music/the score & background music was just icing on the cake. I strongly suggest seeing this film. It was hard to get a copy at the video store in town as everyone already heard of it and waited to see it before I could grab a copy! Get yours today and check this film out with some new faces and talent that should grab the attn of big entertainment industry directors!

Go Teagarden

[pinkpaperbird · 10/10 · 30 January 2007]

The Paleface character was excellent. Go Teagarden!!!!! I appreciate the energy of this film. It's creative. Why be so harsh? These people are obviously trying to express their own ideas without the support of Disney! So it doesn't maybe fit the western theme so well in a post modern world genre is less important then creativity. If anything this movie is an exercise in character depiction. The only thing I had a problem with was the script. On the other hand, the lighting was brilliant!You can not film without good lighting. I appreciated the fresh outlook on sound. "To each is given a bag of tools.A shapeless mask and a book of rules, and each must make, ere life has flown,a stumbling block or a stepping stone." Arthur Hoyt Scott. This has cult classic written all over it!

Fun Movie that will thrill western fans

[longtrisha · 9/10 · 3 May 2006]

I have to say that I watched this film after AN ORDINARY KILLER which I gave a 10. I enjoy the more reality based CSI type stuff but since I had gone to college with DJ Perry back in the MSU days I try to keep up now and then with his projects. JUDGES was fun. I'm not a huge western fan but this had that whole modern twist and I enjoyed that. I thought that the characters were very interesting to watch on screen. I enjoyed the small touches where they combined modern day and the old west. Someone else commented on it being "cute" or something and I saw tributes not "cute" but that was me. Buddy Colt and The Barber were my two favorite characters. I wanted to see them fight but I guess bringing a razor to a gun fight is like...you get it. I rented this at Hollywood VIDEO and I say if you like westerns or action flicks this movie is for you. My boyfriend really enjoyed it and said the old cars rocked. There is his two cents worth.