Susan Granger’s review of “Conviction” (Fox Searchlight)
Two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank oozes earnestness in this biopic about Betty Anne Waters, a feisty Massachusetts high school dropout who put herself through college and law school to exonerate her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell), who was wrongly imprisoned for murder.
As the story begins, young Betty Anne and Kenny break-and-enter the mobile home of a neighbor, Katharina Brow. Problem is: later, that rural site becomes the scene of Brow’s brutal murder, as she’s stabbed 30 times and her head is bashed in. Because Kenny’s two ex-girlfriends (Clea DuVall and Juliette Lewis) give incriminating evidence against him, police officer Nancy Taylor (Melissa Leo) sends Kenny prison for life.
“I will never accept it!” Betty Anne declares, vowing to prove Kenny’s innocence, which she, eventually, does over a period of 18 years, obsessively unearthing missing evidence from the trial and demanding DNA tests, aided by Abra (Minnie Driver), a classmate at the Roger Williams University School of Law, and crusading Innocence Project attorney Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher), who may be trying to atone for having defended O.J. Simpson during his highly publicized murder trial.
Hilary Swank returns to the underdog, hardscrabble environs of “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999) and “Million Dollar Baby” (2004), after failing to score in “Amelia” (2009). But the most memorable performances are from Sam Rockwell (“Moon”), delineating Kenny’s reckless volatility, Juliette Lewis and Minnie Driver. Problem is: screenwriter Pamela Gray (“Music of the Heart”) and director Tony Goldwyn (“The Last Kiss,” TV’s “Damages”) only superficially skim the dramatic surface of Waters’ devotion, sacrifice and achievement, choosing, instead, to load the humorless, heavy-handed, patronizing narrative with sentimental childhood flashbacks, showing Betty Anne and Kenny as two of nine children sired by seven different fathers.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Conviction” is a shamelessly manipulative 6. After emphasizing that this is based on a true story, filmmakers have chosen not to dilute their ‘happy ending’ by revealing that the after the real-life, ne’er-do-well Kenny was released in March, 2001, he died six months later, fracturing his skull in a fall.
