I completely do not agree with the rating of the film which I saw was even given 3/5 on some websites or newspaper reviews. This film's value and narrative story has something very special to offer, this film was one of the most valuable and significant films I have ever watched in my life and if films of this type do not deserve a high rating then all the rating system may be thrown out of the window.
One first comments underneath this film's trailer follows: " Someone please tell me what is wrong with Hollywood and why this movie was not awarded an Oscar or Golden Globe? This movie was the best I have ever seen. (...) I hope this movie inspires you to do the same for your family if God forbid something like this should happen. I wish Hollywood would have reconsidered. I say it was better then Black Swan and deserved an award. Hillary Swank was awesome as was Sam Rockwell who played Kenny." (Ref. 5)
"Conviction is a 2010 drama film directed by Tony Goldwyn. It stars Hilary Swank as Betty Anne Waters and Sam Rockwell as her brother Kenneth Waters. The film premiered on September 11, 2010, at the Toronto Film Festival and was released on October 15, 2010." (Ref.1)
The film is based on the true story of Betty Anne Waters, an unemployed single mother who, with the help of attorney Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, exonerated her wrongfully convicted brother. In order to do this she earned her GED, then her bachelor's, a master's in education, and eventually a law degree from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. She accomplished this while raising two boys alone and working as a waitress part-time. While in law school, she began investigating her brother's case.
The story of a true murder and real conviction of Kenny who was so fantastically acted as by Sam Rockwell took place in1983.
The murder of Katharina Brow in Ayer, Massachusetts in 1980 led the investigation to a completely wrong source and an innocent man was imprisoned.
This story also brings the significance of the Innocence Project to our cinema screens. Winchester University is currently a member of the project and I am proud of it.
Betty Anne (played by Hilary Swank), single mother spends a decade earning a law degree so she can represent her brother at court. She managed to locate biological evidence and then worked with the Innocence Project, to obtain DNA testing on the evidence. Her love, faith and devotion led to proving Waters' innocence and his exoneration on June 19, 2001.
Betty crushes the conviction by revealing the corruption of the police officer Nancy Taylor played by Melissa Leo, a cop who pins the murder on Kenny.
The story is deeply moving and shows heroic actions of Betty, who from a just an average citizen living peacefully with her family and enjoying her life became an extraordinary hero, fearless and unbreakable even when her whole world stood against her. She did not give in and never lost her faith in her brother's innocence.
The fact that the film was based on this extraordinary story shows a great taste and idea for film played by award winning actors.
Bearing all above in mind I was unpleasantly surprised by the lack of audience in the cinema and some of the reviews in the cinema I happened to be watching it at.
Reading comments and reviews on the film like for example one of popular websites, has only given Conviction "generally positive reviews" with an average score of 6.2/10 which I completely disagree with. Further on I read "he critical consensus is: Less compelling -- and more manipulative -- than it should be, Conviction benefits from its compelling true story and a pair of solid performances from Swank and Rockwell. Another review aggregator Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
True stories like this should be rated in it's own individual and category. The play of actors perhaps can be judged performance wise (which I would give 9/10) but the story is real, we can not judge the reality in which someone's life has nearly been wasted in prison for a wrongful conviction. The answer to that is quite simple. We can not.
References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_(film)
2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244754/
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/8070463/Conviction-London-Film-Festival-review.html
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jan/13/conviction-review
5. shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrPtr0aQx3s
