Conviction (2010)

Conviction is based on a true story about a woman's drive to free her brother, who's been wrongly accused and imprisoned for brutally murdering a woman.

Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) is a non-traditional ("old") law student at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, trying to become a lawyer so she can help her brother, Kenny (Sam Rockwell), get out of prison, where he's been for the past 12 years.

She learns that DNA testing has become acceptable evidence in overturning convictions, and contacts Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher), an attorney with the Innocent Project, which specializes in DNA evidence. Things are looking up.

But they find out the evidence probably has long been destroyed, as is standard procedure when solved cases are 10 years old.

Alternating between law school, their sibling relationship, the courtroom trial, and legal maneuvering by Betty Anne and her good friend Abra Rice (Minnie Driver), her law school classmate, requires mind resets quite often because the story moves along at a rapid pace once it gets going.

Betty Anne and Abra find the evidence and Barry Scheck signs on. But it's not going to be easy. Martha Coakley (Jennifer G. Roberts), the newly elected district attorney, stonewalls and stalls, but the results eliminate Kenny as the source of the perpetrator's blood in the evidence files.

Unfortunately, DA Coakley doesn't vacate the verdict, saying there's enough evidence to convict him as an accomplice. Everybody is disappointed; Kenny is disheartened and gives up.

But the DNA doesn't just prove Kenny is innocent, it proves the witnesses were lying. It turns out that damning testimony by ex-wife Brenda Marsh (Clea DuVall) and ex-girlfriend Roseanna Perry (Juliette Lewis) was coerced by Ayers Massachusetts Police Department Sgt. Nancy Taylor (Melissa Leo), who held a grudge against him.

After 18 years, Kenny and his daughter, Mandy (Ari Graynor), are reunited.

The movie has a happy ending, but the Kenny Waters story doesn't. Kenny died six months after being released from prison when he fell off a wall while taking a shortcut.

The family of Katharina Brow, the murder victim, has said they intend to sue Hilary Swank for not consulting with them, and failing to show their mother in a “better light."

Grade: B