Rockwell sheds his good looks to wither away convincingly, and Swank flashes her million dollar smile to good effect, but for patronising its audience, and compromising the undoubted achievements of its earnest protagonists, Conviction stands guilty as charged.
Swank and Rockwell elevate a solid drama that tells its tall tale with, yes, conviction. It’s not exactly the whole truth, though.
It’s okay in a TV movie way, but disappointing given all the obvious potential of the real story.
For a movie about a 20-year campaign to uncover the facts of a case, Conviction can be mighty shy about its own truthfulness.
It's all dreadful, it's all glutinous, it's all trite. It's all pie-eyed beyond the dreams of Reader's Digest.
The inherent power of the storyline is let down by Pamela Gray’s uninspired script, which fails to generate sufficient anger at the behaviour of the police and legal authorities, leaving Conviction watchable, but unimaginative.
It’s interesting enough, but underpowered as drama, and Conviction emerges as respectable and unremarkable.
[An] earnest, dull film.
A so-so bordering on dull legal drama that relies on the performances of Swank and her co-star Sam Rockwell for elevation.
The facts of this true story are truly remarkable, so it's a pity that Tony Goldwyn's TV movie-style drama has contrived to muffle rather than magnify them.
If it sounds like true-story-of-the-week territory, that’s exactly what it is, and plenty goes awry.
Conviction is a TV movie masquerading as Oscar-bait, a film in which any complexity/nuance/ambiguity/genuine drama has been rigorously beaten out of it with a by-the-numbers script and broad-strokes acting.
There are questions that could have been asked about Waters's motives, and whether it was right for her to sacrifice so much of her own life for the sake of Kenny's, but this drab TV movie tiptoes around them.
[A] well-made, highly conventional, true-life story.
Interview: Hilary Swank, actress
Conviction shows inconvenient truth of flawed justice
Sam Rockwell: A wild card's world of pain
Do you have the courage of Conviction to fight miscarriages of justice?
General release. Check local listings for show times.