Conviction (2010)

The film is based on an interesting true story , and could have made a good movie. . Unfortunately, it quickly devolves into a lifetime network cliché.Basically, a hard luck white trash family becomes even unluckier when one of the brothers is falsely accused and convicted of murder. Hillary Swank reprieves her role as a poorly educated but not too dumb white trasher, good looking but evidently too poor for orthodontic care.The film has high rent cinematography , but low brow script writing. This is demonstrated early on when , yes, an adult male insults a child, and is promptly beaten to a pulp. This transpires at a wedding reception where a man questions the wisdom of bringing a small child to a rowdy, white trash jamboree. Sam Rockwell, all 170 lbs of him, instantly beats the guy, nearly popping his head like a zit. A toothy swank looks on, smiling like a mutant hyena.It's not that the above scene is a Lifetime Channel cliché, it's that ALL the scenes are. Swank puts her life on hold to defend her brother, getting her GED and a law school degree from some matchbook degree mill. In spite of her disadvantaged background, she is smarter than every man the legal system has ever produced. Major credibility problems, even for the Oxygen Network crowd. They are usually satisfied by simplistic "woman better than men" stories but this one is silly even for them.Hillary Swank has made a career out of these kind of roles, and her "unusual " appearance has simultaneously attracted and puzzled audiences for years. I once heard her humble brag about not having health insurance when she got her first Oscar. I hope she can afford a dental plan now.

A lot of film are made that are based on a true story, and most of these films claim to be inspirational, but seldom are. Finding a truly inspirational film, that is based on a true story, is like finding a needle in a haystack, in this case, that needle is called Conviction. Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) came from a dysfunctional family, dropped out of High School, got married, and had kids, while she was still a child herself. She never wanted to be anything more than a housewife, until her brother, Kenneth (Sam Rockwell), was convicted of a murder she knew he couldn't have committed. It took fifteen long years, but Betty Anne got her GED, finished college, and went to law school, with the hopes of one day getting her brother exonerated. Hilary Swank stars and thrives in roles like this one. Despite her beauty and talent, she is one of the most down to earth people in Hollywood, and is always very believable as a normal, every day person. In most of her films, she is the kind of person audiences empathize with and cheer for, making her perfect for this role. She is paired with Sam Rockwell who is one of the most underrated stars in Hollywood. The man has immense talent, but is seldom talked about, because of the awful films he decides to star in. I have admired Rockwell for a long time, but this is the first time I can remember rating a film he was in higher than three stars. Conviction is a real story, written by the people who lived through it. It is heartfelt, inspirational, and most importantly real. The film may have bombed in theaters, but it is a true gem that was seriously overlooked.

Hilary Swank is an actress who has the internal strength and the talent to create a type of feminine characters feminist movies can be built around. Following 'Million Dollar Baby' and 'Amelia' now comes 'Conviction'. Again her hero is taking an unusual path, she will go with her feelings and against all odds, fight adversity and fight her condition as a woman to succeed in a career and reach a goal that seems unachievable. The danger is repetition, variants around the same subject and the same type of character are good only when they reinvent themselves and bring new points of view, new angles. This does not happen in 'Conviction' and not even the facts that the story is inspired by reality and the character she plays is taken from true life do not help. Nothing seems too real, the characters develop on expected paths, and the result is a film too long, I wish I had seen the documentary instead. Good acting from Swank and her supporting team does not make this movie take off.

Conviction is a film directed by Tony Goldwyn. It stars Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters and Sam Rockwell as her brother Kenneth "Kenny" Waters. It is is the inspirational true story of a sister's unwavering devotion to her brother. When Betty Anne Waters' older brother Kenny is arrested for murder and sentenced to life in 1983, Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two, dedicates her life to overturning the murder conviction. Convinced that her brother is innocent, Betty Anne puts herself through high school, college and, finally, law school in an 18 year quest to free Kenny. With the help of best friend Abra Rice, Betty Anne pores through suspicious evidence mounted by small town cop Nancy Taylor, meticulously retracing the steps that led to Kenny's arrest. Belief in her brother - and her quest for the truth - pushes Betty Anne and her team to uncover the facts and utilize DNA evidence with the hope of exonerating Kenny.In her study group, Betty Anne learns about the new field of DNA testing and realizes this could be the key to overturning Kenny's conviction. She contacts attorney Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project. The backlog of cases will mean waiting more than a year unless she can pass the bar and find the blood evidence from Kenny's trial herself to have it tested. At first she is stonewalled, then told the evidence was destroyed, but she refuses to give up, and she and her friend Abra embark on an odyssey to recover any evidence that might still be stored away somewhere. At the time of the trial, Kenny's blood type was shown to be identical to the killer's but DNA testing didn't exist. In the process, Betty Anne learns from an acquaintance who is now a police officer that Nancy Taylor was fired from the police department for fabricating evidence in another case. This deepens Betty Anne's suspicions about Kenny's conviction and the "evidence" given at trial. Finally the DNA results come back and establish that the blood was not Kenny's. Betty Anne and Kenny are overjoyed and think he is about to be released, after 16 years in prison, but Martha Coakley, of the District Attorney's office, refuses to vacate the conviction. They claim there was still enough evidence to convict Kenny as an accomplice, and Kenny is convinced that no matter what they do the authorities will find a way to keep him in prison to avoid admitting to a botched prosecution. Betty Anne is heartbroken but again refuses to give up.Betty Anne, Abra, and Barry Scheck visit the other two trial witnesses, Kenny's ex-wife and ex-girlfriend. Both tearfully admit that Sergeant Nancy Taylor coerced them into perjuring themselves at the trial in order to get a conviction. With an affidavit from Kenny's ex-wife and the DNA evidence, Kenny's conviction is vacated and he is freed from prison after 18 years in June 2001. Betty Anne is able to persuade his daughter, Mandy (Ari Graynor), who he had only known as a small child, that he never stopped trying to reach out to her while he was in prison despite his ex-wife's efforts to estrange them. He is able to reconnect with his daughter and is reunited with his sister, and her sons. The epilogue states that Betty Anne secured a large civil settlement from the City of Ayer for Kenny's wrongful conviction, but former Sergeant Nancy Taylor could not be charged with a crime because the statute of limitations had expired. Katharina Brow's real murderer has not been found.Less compelling -- and more manipulative -- than it should be, Conviction benefits from its compelling true story and a pair of solid performances from Swank and Rockwell.