When a hotshot lawyer returns to his hometown to attend his mother's funeral, he ends up staying indefinitely after his father, a criminal court judge, is charged with the murder of a former. While preparing for trial, hank learns that his father is secretly undergoing chemotherapy for terminal cancer, which has affected his mental acuity for months. Synopsis hank palmer (robert downey jr. ) is a successful defense attorney in chicago who has been estranged from his family in a small-town carlinville in indiana for some time.

Big-city lawyer hank palmer returns to his childhood home where his father, the town's judge, is suspected of murder.