Near the end of the new drama “Conviction,” Betty Anne Waters (Hillary Swank) says that “people don’t like to admit” to their own mistakes. The movie features a series of bad decisions made by law enforcement officials, jury members and a local politician that ultimately kept an innocent man in prison for over two decades. To confront the mistakes that landed her brother in prison, Betty Anne decides to earn her law degree so that she can defend her brother in court. Her story is told in “Conviction,” a well-made and well-acted film that is unafraid to make accusations against people who stood in the way of justice.
Hilary Swank, winner of two Academy Awards, is no stranger to good scripts and “Conviction” has a great one. Betty Anne is a young mother with a reckless brother named Kenny (Sam Rockwell) who is constantly in trouble and getting arrested by the local police. After a while, he starts joking about all of his arrests, jokes that will come back to haunt him in the years to come.
The police eventually arrest Kenny on a murder charge for a crime that took place a few years earlier. This charge is no laughing matter and Kenny is soon sentenced to life in prison. Betty Anne, who knows that her brother is a fool but no murderer, believes that Kenny is innocent and decides to fight for his vindication as his attorney.
However, when she makes this decision, she isn’t a lawyer. Actually, she’s not even a high school graduate yet.
“Conviction” follows her journey as she goes to college and earns a law degree while working as a waitress. She also befriends a classmate named Abra (Minnie Driver) and as they about the law, they try to apply it to Kenny’s case. Inspired by a true story, the title “Conviction” could refer to the ruling that put Kenny in jail but also to Betty Anne’s strongly-held belief that her brother was wrongly imprisoned.
“Conviction” is more than a typical courtroom drama. It tells the story of a family. Betty Anne and Kenny are two close siblings who have always tried to protect each other. When they were younger, they often broke into other people’s houses to escape their own disappointing home life. In flashbacks, the movie shows them getting caught by the police and this sets a pattern where Kenny helps Betty Anne escape punishment and Betty Anne protects Kenny. It’s no surprise that such dedication didn’t dissipate when the two entered adulthood.
When Kenny goes to prison for murder, Betty Anne has her own family but she risks alienating them as she focuses on saving her brother. The dedicated sister may be a hero to him but she isn’t immune from making her own mistakes. As she fights for her brother’s freedom, her relationship with her own family suffers.
Unlike other law films where idealistic lawyers fight against large corporations, this movie features more interesting villains. One is a politician who doesn’t want to admit that she’s wrong. It’s ultimately not enough for Betty Anne to uncover evidence that vindicates her brother. She also has to fight a young District Attorney named Martha Coakley, who doesn’t want to let Kenny get out of prison despite the evidence. (If Coakley’s name sounds familiar, it’s because she unsuccessfully ran against Scott Brown earlier this year to replace Ted Kennedy in the United States Senate.) For the record, Coakley has said that she liked the movie but that it was “inaccurate.”
With its focus on the importance of family and a story unafraid to criticize law enforcement officials and politician, this is a movie that shouldn’t be missed and likely won’t be forgotten during awards season.