FADE IN:

INT. COURT HOUSE - CHICAGO

ROBERT DOWNEY JR is a rich, smug, wisecracking jerk who wears an expensive suit, so this is COMPLETELY unlike any character he’s played in the last SIX YEARS.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Wow, I’m kind of a prick. I had better do something funny and charming right off the bat in order to woo the audience into rooting for me.

(pause)

Unless of course I’m an arrogant self-centered Jordan Belfort-like douchebag, in which case

(pees on someone)

DAVID KRUMHOLTZ

Hey! That someone is me! As a fellow lawyer I chastise you for being a cutthroat defense attorney who only represents guilty rich people!

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Is it my fault innocent broke ass people can’t afford me? Wait, did I honestly just say that out loud? Jesus Christ I am such a raging asshole. I bet even Johnnie Cochran believed his clients were actually innocent. Something really emotional needs to happen right now or the audience isn’t going to give more than zero shits about me.

DAVID KRUMHOLTZ

Well your mom just died.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

That oughta do it!

EMMA TREMBLAY

And I’m your adorable daughter and I love you daddy, thus implying you are actually a loving father despite all evidence to the contrary.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

How about that!

SARAH LANCASTER

And I’m your soon to be ex-wife because you’ve been an emotionally distant heartless bastard to me. That’s why I cheated on you.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

That means I get to mack on all the hot bitches in my home town without looking like a total shitheel! Whoohoo!

SARAH LANCASTER

Also I go on to name a long, long list of reasons why you don’t deserve to have custody of our daughter like

(dialog muted)

That part really HAPPENS.

EXT. HICKSVILLE, INDIANA

ROBERT returns to his home town which is apparently tits deep in APPLE PIE, FLAGS, PICKUP TRUCKS, and various other stereotypical small town BULLSHIT.

ROBERT attends his mother’s wake and communicates his loss with silence.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

I just went 30 seconds without saying something snarky? Whoa, that was uncomfortable. Okay, no more of that. From now on I need to always be talking whenever I’m on screen even when it would make sense not to.

This HAPPENS.

ROBERT DUVALL approaches. Here comes The Judge, here Comes The Judge, here comes The Judge, here comes The Judge!

ROBERT DUVALL

I’m a well respected judicial figure and Robert’s hardass father, in that order. Robert, despite being a successful lawyer, I think you’re a disgrace to the family name and I wish I had shot you into a napkin.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Oh that’s it! I will NOT be out-jerked! Fuck you, dad! I’m leaving! And the only way I’d ever come back is if you killed someone!

ROBERT DUVALL

Hmmm, that's an oddly specific thing to say given our legal professions. Wouldn't it be conveniently ironic if I just so happened to have

(killed someone)

DUVALL is arrested for mowing down an EVIL CONVICT with his JUDGEMOBILE.

BILLY BOB THORNTON

(thumbing suspenders while rocking back and forth on his heels)

Now I may not be one a dem big city lawyers, but Duvall knew and hated the victim, was seen near the murder site, and the victim’s blood was found on the car which has an evil convict-shaped dent on the bumper. This is an open and shut case.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Not unless I use my slimy lawyer powers to get him acquitted! In which case I should have this whole thing wrapped up in 30 minutes!

Realizing this, director DAVID DOBKINS suddenly determines that potential OSCAR DARLINGS are rarely under 90 minutes and so he ops to shoehorn a whole mess of BORING NEEDLESS SUBPLOTS into the film such as:

VERA FARMIGA

Hey Robert! I’m your old high school sweetheart who you are still clearly in love with!

LEIGHTON MEESTER

And I’m Vera’s daughter! Remember? You flirted with me within five minutes of getting into town! And I was born exactly 9 months after you dumped my mom! I’m sure that’s purely coincidence!

VINCENT D'ONOFRIO

And I’m Robert’s older brother who suffered a career ending injury after Robert got us both into a terrible car accident!

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Whoawhoawhoa everybody, calm THE FUCK down! Vera, obviously we are going to hook up because fuck trying to win back my wife who I neglected the shit out of. Leighton, it turns out Vincent is your father. Eww. And Vincent, I’m sorry. Now can we get back to the plot? Whedon needs me to rub my balls on his next TV pilot for good luck in 20 minutes.

But director DAVID DOBKINS is still not convinced the movie is LONG AND DRAWN OUT ENOUGH so he spends an uncomfortable amount of time showing us OLD HOME MOVIES of YOUNG ROBERT and YOUNG DUVALL back before they were being douchenozzels to each other, which then prompts present day ROBERT and DUVALL to continue being DOUCHENOZZELS TO EACH OTHER right in the middle of a HURRICANE.

HURRICANE

Maybe I can hurry the goddamn plot along by brutally killing one of them, perhaps?

That DOES NOT happen. ROBERT and DUVALL keep on yelling at each other until the hurricane gets BORED and LEAVES.

ROBERT DUVALL

Son, I have cancer and the chemotherapy has impaired my memory, which is why I don’t remember turning that evil convict into windshield pizza.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Great! I can use that to win your case!

ROBERT DUVALL

But to reveal this information could cast my past rulings into doubt and damage my career, so no.

BILLY BOB THORNTON

Did I mention there’s a video proving Duvall lied in his statement and deliberately drove in the evil convict’s direction minutes before he died?

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Fuck! We’re toast! Listen to me dad, if you don’t let me lie you out of this you’re going to prison!

ROBERT DUVALL

So? I’m old and senile and dying of cancer, and that son of a bitch I ran down had it coming. Would it really be the end of the world if I went down for the murder if it means my professional reputation would be intact?

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Yes. Now shut up and let me show you I love you by pulling your ass out of this mess, you mean old coot. Okay?

ROBERT DUVALL

(grumble)

INT. COURT ROOM

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Okay dad, now when Billy asks you if you killed that guy, just say no and we’re home free. Okay?

ROBERT DUVALL

Yarp.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Good. Now remember, when he asks you if you killed that guy on purpose, you say:

ROBERT DUVALL

Narp.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Excellent. Excellent. This is going to be cake.

BILLY BOB THORNTON

Duvall, you kill that guy on purpose?

ROBERT DUVALL

FUCKING HELL YEAH I DID!!!

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

(facepalms)

ROBERT DUVALL

By which I mean I only THINK I did because the chemo has curb stomped my poor frail mind into pink Jell-O.

THE JURY

Awwww. Not Guilty!

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Yes!

THE JURY

To First Degree murder. He’s guilty as shit of manslaughter though.

THE (OTHER) JUDGE

I sentence Duvall to 4 years in prison, but he’ll only serve 7 months so no biggie.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

(crying)

But... But that’s bullshit! What about my slick big city lawyering powers?

THE (OTHER) JUDGE

C’mon man, Duvall flat out confessed to killing that evil convict. You’re lucky the victim was a total scumbag otherwise I’d have given Duvall the fucking chair.

DUVALL goes to prison, but he and ROBERT are now BESTIES and go fishing after he’s paroled.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

And to think, all it took for us to resolve our age old differences was a little vehicular manslaughter.

ROBERT DUVALL

Yeah, who knew murder could be so emotionally uplifting.

(pause)

Wait a second, is THAT the message the audience is really taking from this?

It IS.

ROBERT DUVALL

Well that just flares my cancer.

(croaks)

ROBERT buries his father and decides to stay in his home town to be with VERA.

VERA FARMIGA

Wow Robert, you gave up your high paying city job and million dollar house to live in bumfuck nowhere for me?

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Turns out resolving to not hate my dad anymore infected me with morals and a soul so my days as a hotshot defense lawyer are over. We also imply I will eventually take my father’s place as the local judge, so I’m still making out like a bandit.

VERA FARMIGA

But are we ever going to tell your brother Vincent that you are now going to be a father to his daughter, who is actually your niece?

ROBERT DOWNEY JR

Nah, fuck that guy.

The movie then cranks up some SHITTY UPLIFTING MUSIC in an attempt to convince the audience they didn’t just spend $10 bucks on a big budget Hallmark Channel movie.

AUDIENCE

(realizing)

HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!!!

END