"Conviction"

Richard's Review: 3 stars

"Conviction," a new true-life crime drama starring Hilary Swank as a woman who believes her brother has been wrongly convicted of murder, is the Hollywood version of real events. Actors Swank, Sam Rockwell and Juliette Lewis go hayseed with Gomer Pyle accents and blackened teeth in an inspirational story where dramatic epiphanies conveniently pop up whenever the story starts to sag.

Swank and Rockwell play Betty Ann and Kenny Waters, a closely knit brother and sister from rural Massachusetts. Kenny is a charming hell raiser, specializing in petty crimes and prone to hanging moons in bars. When a local woman is brutally murdered, however, serious attention comes his way. Everyone believes he is guilty, everyone, that is, except Betty Ann who spends more than a decade earning a law degree to help prove her brother's innocence.

"Conviction" is a crowd pleaser in the vein of "Erin Brockovich." It features fine performances from Swank and Rockwell and an unhinged cameo from Lewis that proves she is as fearless as ever, coupled with a stirring story. It has some nice emotional moments but for all its crowd pleasing ways, it is about as conventional a movie as we'll see this year. Evidence is uncovered just in the nick of time and at one point Betty Ann and her best friend Abra (a very good Minnie Driver) even dance in joy. The by-the-book retelling of this compelling story doesn't do it any favors; the opening half hour drags, plot points seem a bit too convenient and the emotional moments a bit too standard.

It is however, almost salvaged by some very good actors, but what should have been a memorable recounting of a remarkable story fades very quickly after the closing credits have stopped rolling.

"Red"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

When you see Helen Mirren's name in the credits of a comic book adaptation you know that either hell has frozen over or you're in for a pretty good bit of cartoony fun. Luckily it isn't time for Old Scratch to buy a parka. Mirren stars in "Red" --an acronym for Retired, Extremely Dangerous -- joining an all star cast of grey power actors like Bruce Willis (who would likely be grey if he had hair), Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich in a dramatization of a three-issue comic book mini-series about retired CIA agents called back into duty.

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is retired and bored. Padding around his comfortable suburban home he carries on a phone relationship with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a clerk at Social Security. Their flirtation, however, goes to a whole new level when Frank's home is invaded by some very bad men with some very large guns.

He dispatches them, then realizes that not only is he a target, but very likely so is Sarah, the only person he ever talks to on the phone. They've never met face to face, so he travels to Kansas City, kidnaps her (for her own safety, of course) and embarks on a truth seeking mission that will reunite him with his old CIA workmates (Mirren, Morgan and Malkovich), uncover a war crime and a plot that leads to the very upper echelons of power.

"Red" serves up a clever mix of one-liners -- "I miss the old days," says Ivan Simano (Brian Cox), "I haven't killed anyone in years" -- and action with a chaser of Geritol. We're used to seeing Willis do action, so that's not much of a stretch, but it's a hoot to see his co-stars play against type. Malkovich's paranoid (and rightly so) weapons expert, Mirren's mild-mannered assassin ("I kill people, dear.") and Morgan Freeman's deadly intelligence officer are old timers, but unlike other lame retiree movies like "The Crew" (which starred "Red" bad guy Richard Dreyfuss) "Red" proves these grandparents don't need Red Bull to be Red -- Retired, Extremely Dangerous.

In the supporting cast Mary Louise Parker as Sarah, the clerk who finds she enjoys the life of danger Frank offers up, is a livewire. Parker takes a role that could easily have been played as the hysterical girlfriend cliché, puts a spin on it and very nearly walks away with the whole movie. Also strong is Karl Urban as an up-and-coming CIA black ops agent. He's a family man and killer and is an effective foil for Willis and company.

"Red" isn't great art, but it is a lot of fun and worth it to see tough guy Willis tucked in bed reading a romance novel called "Love's Savage Secret."

"Stone"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars for acting, 2 stars for story

"Stone," the new film starring powerhouse method actors Robert de Niro and Edward Norton, is the very definition of an actor's movie. Richly drawn characters populate the film giving actors a chance to brood, use funny accents and, in the case of Milla Jovovich, deliver a career altering performance. It's just too bad the story doesn't give the actors the support they deserve.

De Niro plays parole case worker Jack Mabry. He's a month away from retirement, and in an effort to cross t's and dot i's he's clearing his desk of all his outstanding paperwork. One of his final cases is Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Norton), an arsonist looking for spiritual enlightenment and a way out of prison. They engage in an elaborate verbal game but when words fail, Stone resorts to plan B, convincing his wife Lucetta (Jovovich) to seduce Mabry and use blackmail to earn his release from jail. She's a willing participant, but soon after ethical and moral lines are crossed the deception deepens, revealing the true character of all involved.

First and foremost "Stone" is a movie to be admired for its performances. Norton, corn rows and all, impresses, playing a riff on the sketchy but emotionally layered characters he's played before in films like "American History X" and "Primal Fear." Mabry seems like a character De Niro could play in his sleep, a family guy with a reserve of rage hidden just under the surface, but his skilful performance takes Mabry to interesting and unexpected places. The biggest surprise, however, is Jovovich. The queen of the "Resident Evil" series taps into previously unseen reservoirs of talent, hinting that she may soon add Oscar nominee to her imdb listing.

The performances are admirable but as good as they are the story won't inspire admiration, just frustration. It has the bones of a gripping drama but as the running time approaches the ninety minute mark character motivations become muddled and Norton's metaphysical transformation seems more like a plot device than a believable life change. It allows Norton to do some interesting work but feels like it belongs in a different movie. Near the end it almost feels as though director John Curran (who worked with Norton before on the period drama The Painted Veil) ran out of time and had to tie up all the story shards in the quickest, most efficient way possible. There is little resolution and a metaphor, at least that's what I think it is, involving a fly is mystifying.

"Stone" shines when it focuses on the story but sinks like a, well, stone story wise.

"Nowhere Boy" 

Richard's Review: 4 stars

There is no shortage of John Lennon on celluloid. There are five official Beatles movies, documentaries like "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," a 2006 movie that focuses on Lennon's transformation from musician into antiwar activist, and even experimental short films like the John Lennon and Yoko shorts like "Two Virgins" and "Apotheosis." He's been portrayed by everyone from Paul Rudd (in "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story") to Monty Python's Eric Idle but rarely has any actor captured both the rebelliousness and vulnerability as Aaron Johnson does in "Nowhere Boy."

The coming-of-age-story of one of the most famous people of the twentieth century, "Nowhere Boy" examines Lennon's relationship with his estranged mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) and his Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), the woman who raised him. For the first time on film we see the effect the combustible combination of women had on his life. His mother's ready! steady! go! lifestyle helping to form his rock ‘n' roll side, while Aunt Mimi's more slow and steady influence brought out John's sensitive, artistic side.

"Nowhere Boy" is a fascinating character study that reveals the formative years of a complicated man. Aaron Johnson, who was 18 at the time, succeeds because he doesn't try to imitate Lennon, instead he plays a young, confused man who is on the cusp of growing up. Sure, the distinctive Liverpool accent is there as are the right period details, but it's what is beyond those crutches that make this performance, as they said in "Yellow Submarine," "a tickle of joy on the belly of the universe."

First time director Sam Taylor-Wood gets the muddled mix of excitement, testosterone and disappointment Lennon felt on an almost daily basis just right, and in the process has made one of the best Beatle bios to date.