Conviction

Conventional yet surprisingly moving, Conviction follows Hilary Swank’s Betty Anne Waters as she essentially puts her life on hold to become a lawyer after her brother (Sam Rockwell’s Kenny) is convicted of murder. Conviction suffers from an opening half hour that’s not exactly easy to get into, as filmmaker Tony Goldwyn, working from Pamela Gray’s screenplay, offers up a meandering, time-shifting atmosphere that initially prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly embracing either the material or the characters. There does reach a point, however, at which it becomes awfully difficult to resist the inherently compelling charms of the film’s true-life story, with the sporadic inclusion of unexpectedly electrifying sequences (eg Betty Anne tracks down a pivotal piece of evidence) certainly elevating the proceedings on an increasingly frequent basis. The movie builds to a feel-good ending that admittedly packs quite an emotional punch, and there’s subsequently little doubt that Conviction, armed with terrific performances from both Swank and Rockwell, ranks among the best of the true-life dramas to emerge out of Hollywood within the last few years.

***1/2 out of ****