Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell Suffer From a Lack of ‘Conviction’

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Average: 4.3 (4 votes)
HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 2.5/5.0
Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – The United States, with the largest prison population in the Western world, obviously has used the system to incarcerate undesirables in the society, whether they are guilty or not. The access to real justice is played out in the cumbersome “Conviction,” featuring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver and Melissa Leo.

Conviction is the based-on-truth story of Betty Anne Walters (Hilary Swank), whose brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) is accused of murder in the early 1980s. When circumstantial evidence and flimsy testimony still garners a conviction, Betty Anne makes a promise to herself to find a way to free Kenny, and begins a journey that takes her to a new path.

Kenny is shown to be a wild man, barely in control, as the flashbacks of he and Betty Anne’s difficult childhood illustrates. When the murder of one his former girlfriends occur, the suspicion immediately points to him. Although he has an airtight alibi, it is the efforts of local law enforcement, as represented by Officer Nancy Taylor (Melissa Leo), and a parade of damning testimony that sends Kenny to prison.

When Betty Anne makes her promise to Kenny to free him, she actually goes to law school to learn how to do it, despite having a marriage and two children. In the classroom she meets the flighty Abra (Minnie Driver) and it is their alliance that eventually begins the process that will get Kenny off. Betty Anne is willing to sacrifice everything, including her marriage, to complete the cycle of justice.

Sister and Brother: Hilary Swank as Betty Anne and Sam Rockwell as Kenny in ‘Conviction’
Sister and Brother: Hilary Swank as Betty Anne and Sam Rockwell as Kenny in ‘Conviction’
Photo Credit: Ron Batzdorff for © Fox Searchlight Pictures

Modern science meets sheer determination as the new technology of DNA testing could be the key to Kenny’s freedom. Betty Anne and Abra then get help from attorney Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher), who runs a Boston law society aimed at releasing innocent victims. Betty Anne and Kenny now have a chance to be reunited.

This is a clumsy film, despite its good intentions and fairly decent acting. Director Tony Goldwyn (”A Walk on the Moon”) has real trouble with the timeline, flitting back and forth between the past and the main story, without allowing for the understanding of which year it might be. The narrative takes place between the late 1970s and the early 2000s, but there are absurdities like misplaced cellphone technology and Betty Anne’s kids, who somehow stay the same age throughout several years.

Both Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell give valiant, steady performances, but the script (by Pamela Gray) trips them up several times. Rockwell in particular can’t seem to get a grasp on his Kenny personality, taking the news of freedom and incarceration in odds ways, not consistent or wholly formed throughout. It almost felt like some crucial information about his character was left on the cutting room floor, as his emotional shifts are so abrupt. Swank doesn’t age as well, looking primarily the same in 1978 to the millennium. I’ll do what she’s doing.

The supporting cast is uneven, sometimes glaringly so. Minnie Driver, reduced to the supporting best friend, injects a strange capitulation into the character and never seems real. Juliette Lewis does a showy turn as one of the prosecution witnesses against Kenny, but when she is revisited later it’s as if she has dressed up in a Halloween costume, and performs as if she was playing the character at a party around that holiday. It was simply too much.

It was the great character actress Melissa Leo who pretty much schools the others in character development. Her corruptible cop role as Nancy Taylor had the only subtlety in the picture, as she played out both sides of the conflict in her own being. She is an amazing and real presence amid all of the more cartoony and obvious portrayals, and a movie about her would have been much more palatable and interesting than Betty Anne and Kenny.

Sorting Evidence: Minnie Driver as Abra and Hilary Swank in ‘Conviction’
Sorting Evidence: Minnie Driver as Abra and Hilary Swank in ‘Conviction’
Photo Credit: Ron Batzdorff for © Fox Searchlight Pictures

Not that the movie doesn’t have a good heart, it does, and it’s not because the issue of putting away innocents is not important. It’s just that the overall picture is not given a proper due in this rendering, and all the heroics and “gee-whiz” gumption of Hilary Swank’s Betty Anne rings hollow and completes a path to a foregone conclusion.

Since this is a based on truth story, perhaps digging deeper to the core would have helped. Life is messy, unfair and not without wrong convictions. If that truth is duly noted and exercised properly, then the story of Betty Anne and Kenny may have been a contender, instead of a bummer.

“Conviction” opens everywhere on October 15th. Featuring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo and Peter Gallagher. Screenplay by Pamela Gray, directed by Tony Goldwyn. Rated “R.” Click here for the HollywoodChicago.com interviews of Juliet Lewis and Director Tony Goldwyn of “Conviction.”

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2010 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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