Conviction (DVD)

Conviction (2010) starring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver, Peter Gallagher, Clea DuVall. When Kenneth Waters (Rockwell) is convicted of murder, his sister Betty Anne (Swank) is convinced that he is innocent. They can't afford to hire a good lawyer, so Betty Anne goes to extremes: She gets her GED, goes to college for her BA, and then goes to law school. She becomes a lawyer with one client -- her brother. While in law school, she learns about the Innocence Project, an organization which uses DNA evidence (not available when her brother was convicted) to free innocent men. The rest of the movie is about her struggles to procure the DNA evidence from the 16-year-old trial, followed by struggles with a recalcitrant District Attorney who doesn't want to admit she convicted the wrong man. It's a pretty good, solid film, although I got the feeling that they were trying to cram four hours worth of story into 90 minutes of running time. The closed captions are better than the subtitles. Grade: B