It's that time of year - time for a piece of Hilary Swank Oscar bait.
Last year Swank's performance as Amelia Earhart failed to get a nomination so she's back playing another real person - Betty Anne Waters - a working class mother fighting the legal system in this earnest yet fiercely mediocre melodrama.
Full of the kind of spunk that Lou Grant would definitely hate, Waters put herself through law school just so she could represent her brother, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in Massacusetts.
Sam Rockwell plays the brother, spending the bulk of his role in prison scenes with Swank. The film flashes back to the early '80s when the crime was committed with Rockwell being arrested by Melissa Leo as an obviously corrupt cop.
In a courtroom sequence Rockwell's ex-wife (Clea DuVall) and ex-girlfriend (Juliette Lewis) testify against the accused while Swank steams on the sidelines.
Over the next 16 years Swank struggles to earn her GED, a college diploma and a law degree while working as a bartender all the while investigating her brother's case.
Swank befriends a sassy Minnie Driver as a fellow student and spurned on by the prospect of new DNA evidence hooks up with the Innocence Project - an organization that overturns wrongful convictions led by Barry Scheck (a sauve but wooden Peter Galagher).
With a bad Boston accent and a strained expression for most of the movie, Swank sure doesn't deserve a nomination for this one. Rockwell fares better, but there's not really much to his character.
We see that he's a white trash ruffian always in trouble with the law - the kind who will start a barfight one minute then do a cheered-on semi-striptease to a redneck anthem on the jukebox the next.
We're supposed to be seduced by his wildness and in turn admire Swank's plucky determination to clear her brother's name, because, well, she's wild inside too.
Driver's accent isn't much better than Swank's, but as a Devil's advocate best friend she has a likable presence. Juliette Lewis makes the most of her short but sweet part - she's completely believable as tawdry trailer-trash with bad teeth.
As it was based on a true story this film is not without merit; it's competently constructed, but its bland TV movie mechanisms and treacly score kept it from getting anywhere near my heart.
Try as it might, CONVICTION isn't very convincing.
More later...
