Conviction
(Starring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Juliette Lewis, Minnie Driver)
There are still stories of incredible love out there—people overcoming phenomenal odds with unconditional dedication to those closest to them. If you’re in the mood, the biopic Conviction will definitely choke you up a bit.
Betty Ann Waters (Swank) was a Massachusetts high school dropout who, with her brother (Rockwell), had suffered a rough childhood of absent parenting, petty crime and foster care. When her brother was tried and convicted of a murder, Waters was sure he was innocent. Because she lacked the funds to have him properly defended, she got her GED, went to college, passed the bar and became her brother’s lawyer.
Director Tony Goldwyn (yes, the creepy lothario from Ghost) does a nice, basic technical job. His casting and guidance of actors is more impressive than his photography. Flashbacks with child actors are very emotionally affecting. Conviction also smartly chooses to make Rockwell’s character engaging but dangerously enigmatic. His drinking and temper make it hard to wholesale buy his innocence. Swank’s commitment borders on pathological.
This bioflick has some small missteps that keep the film from being classic, though. Some characters—like best-friend Driver and trashy Lewis—are ciphers, plot devices. Also, much of the story is whizzed past. You will find yourself Googling to answer questions the film ignores.
Those small nags keep Conviction from being a completely enveloping and emotional story of monumental sibling love.
Stone
(Starring Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Mila Jovovich, Francis Conroy)
Even the Oscar-caliber talent cannot save this dumb paint-by-numbers psychological melodrama. The whole endeavor rings false.
De Niro is a Christian prison officer who interviews convicts to recommend if they are ready for parole. Norton is a recovered drug addict, a degenerate lowlife who wants out. To this aim, Norton sets his sexy girlfriend (Jovovich) to seducing De Niro. De Niro is in a staid marriage with a fundamentalist alcoholic (Conroy) who’s grown nuttier over the years, so he succumbs to Jovovich’s charms.
There are so many things that are impossible to buy. The spiritual angle is never truly motivated or developed—it’s as if characters are religious because otherwise, they’d be bored on Sunday mornings. There is no indication why De Niro acts so immorally. Every prison in the U.S. has very strict ethical codes his character would be more comfortable following. Jovovich is a gorgeous cipher; she may be dippy or manipulative, we just can’t tell. Norton rips off from Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking but not to good effect. His emotional vacillation makes it hard to understand his character at all. So many moments seem patently absurd, and, piled upon each other, they create a film that fails.
Stone starts with the foundation of a clunky script. Then it sinks further, because director John Curran and his extraordinarily talented cast did nothing sensible to create any true understanding.
The Next Three Days
(Starring Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks)
The Next Three Days again proves that writer/director Paul Haggis is given more leeway than he deserves. Haggis won Oscars for the very unsubtle Crash. Mediocre scripts like In the Valley of Elah are saved by great actors (in this case, Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon). Other directors like Clint Eastwood make Haggis’ awkward structure—like the two movies mashed together in Million Dollar Baby—actually work. This film, though filled with committed performance and technical prowess, is patently absurd.
Crowe is a community college teacher married to the sexy and fiery Banks. She is sent to prison for a murder, and the literature prof sets to break her out. He ignores his kid and somehow keeps his job as he stakes out the prison day in and day out. He garners no attention as he fills rooms in his house with elaborate plans. He never gets caught as he tests out each step of his Stalag 17 approach.
Sure, if you can buy that goofy premise, the film could be fun. Haggis, though, avoids humor as deftly as he eschews logic. Instead, the talented Crowe and Banks are acting as if they could actually win Oscars for this silly junk. Then there’s the dumb ending, as if Haggis believed he’s asked a dynamic question of our legal system.
It’s all performed and filmed with skill, but Haggis’ ridiculous writing make this feel less like an entertainment and more like a small prison sentence.
