Conviction (***)

A movie’s appeal really shouldn’t depend on whether the story it tells really happened to someone, but it probably does help here to know that Betty Anne Waters really did decide to go to law school, not even having finished high school, just to get her brother Kenny out of jail. This is the sort of inspirational role that Hilary Swank seems to have made a specialty of, and having heard the real Betty Anne, I can say she nails both the rural Massachusetts accent and the sense of, yes, conviction that keeps Betty Anne moving forward.

Betty Anne and Kenny were part of a large, unstable family led by an undependable mother, and Kenny (Sam Rockwell) was prone to getting in fights, which is one reason attention was focused on him after a 1980 murder. Director Tony Goldwyn and writer Pamela Gray, who previously collaborated on 1999’s A Walk on the Moon, include brief but effective flashback scenes that provide a sense of the closeness that the two siblings developed. Rockwell’s few scenes show the actor’s range. There is suspense in the way Goldwyn shows us the testimony that convicted Kenny, and then shows how the jury was misled.

The underdog story seems so tailor-made for a movie that it seems almost too perfect. There is a murder, but not a mystery. The good and the evil are clear. Other stories of wrongful conviction often reveal a series of well-intentioned mistakes, cops and prosecutors trying their best but making errors and false assumptions. Here there is only the actions of one reckless cop, who is well played by Melissa Leo, but an unambiguous villain. And Betty is an unambiguous heroine. Therefore we have a well-told story, but without elements that would make the film truly great or surprising.

IMDB link

viewed 9/28/10 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 11/16/10

After Innocence (**3/4)

A documentary focusing on men who’ve been wrongfully imprisoned. Shot as a series of human-interest stories, it might have been more involving with a sharper focus on the process that led to the unfortunate outcomes.

This is one of four limited-release documentaries (counting the performance film Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic) that opened on the same weekend in Philadelphia. The second favorite film in April’s Philadelphia Film Festival (another documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom, beat it by a step), it tells the story of several “exonerees,” wrongly convicted men who spent years or even decades in prison before new DNA evidence (or in one case, a confession) led to their being freed. Given the title, it makes sense it that it’s mostly the men talking about their adjustment after prison. (There’s no narration.) Still, getting sent to prison for crimes—mostly involving rape, which yields DNA evidence—they didn’t commit is probably the most interesting thing that will ever happen to any of them. I couldn’t help but wish there was more detail about the crimes themselves and the legal process that led to the unfortunate outcomes. A more in-depth focus on a few of the men might have yielded more insights into how things like this happen, and what practical steps can be taken to improve things. I’d also have wanted more screen time for Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who pinpoint misidentification by witnesses as the common element in most of these cases. There is a Philly angle to this film, as two of those profiled are local, and a proposed bill to compensate Pennsylvania exonerees and expunge their records is given some attention. [As of 2009, it does not appear that the bill was passed.]

IMDB link

viewed at 12/?/05 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 12/5/05