October 20, 2010 10:00AM EDT
Best in Show: Sam Rockwell
Sam Rockwell brings both volatile energy and endearing charm to the legal drama Conviction.
Whether or not you believe the old Hollywood maxim “directing is 90% casting,” you do have to admit that it’s a hefty percentage of the sum of any good film. Tony Goldwyn, who directed the new based-on-a-true-story drama Conviction, now in theaters, obviously understands this. Sam Rockwell was Goldwyn’s first and only choice to play the convicted murderer Kenny Waters and casting him was a wise move indeed.
Kenny Waters was a charming man, though not what one might call an easygoing guy. He was violent and unpredictable. In Conviction it’s quickly established that the troubled youth we see breaking into people’s homes in flashbacks grew up to become a troubled man (Rockwell) with a long history of arrests and run-ins with the local cops. In the movie’s most successful and complicated foundational scene, we see him out at a local pub with his wife, his baby daughter, and his sister Betty Anne (Hilary Swank). They’re a little drunk (or maybe a lot), having fun, dancing and talking. One bar patron says the wrong thing about bringing a child to the bar and Kenny snaps. Soon the other guy is a bloody mess and Kenny’s family is rattled, having had to pull him away before he killed the guy. Sensing he’s killed the evening instead, Kenny snaps back to charming mode and tries to save face. Kenny “performs” for them (never mind all that blood!) and eventually has them laughing again with an impromptu striptease performed for the whole rowdy bar crowd. In this scene Swank and Rockwell successfully illustrate Betty and Kenny’s life-long bond: she calms him, he delights her, they protect each other. 
We’ll need to understand this symbiotic relationship for the movie to work and we’ll also need to understand Kenny’s halves. Rockwell shows us both sides of Kenny’s mental coin and makes us fully believe both. Soon Rockwell is convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to a life in prison and Swank is fighting an 18 year struggle to free him. We have to know how capable and quick to violence he is (to understand what made his trial go south so quickly) but we also have to know why such a dark soul would attract such tireless devotion. 
What’s your first association when you hear the name Sam Rockwell? For some it might be that cocky treacherous strutting in Charlie's Angels or Iron Man. For others the buck-naked diving in Lawn Dogs or buck-naked pacing in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. His earliest followers might think back to his eccentricity in Box of Moonlight. New fans might think of the actor, doubled, in Moon, warily watching his clone move about. Maybe your mind leapt to his recent dancing intro on Jimmy Kimmel Live? Come to think of it, you can often find Rockwell dancing onscreen.
The actor is most vividly memorable when he’s in in motion. He often plays live-wire characters and even the nasty ones are somewhat endearing with their loose physicality and that bravado in their step. Rockwell has played imprisoned men before, and it adds a frisson of tension to the scene; you don’t want to see this actor caged. Some part of him is not fully domesticated. He needs the freedom of easy movement to be his best Rockwellian self. It hurts to see him locked up, in chains. Only this hurt can make you sign on as co-chair to Betty’s single-minded lengthy legal journey to free her wild brother.
Click on the poster to find movie times near you for Convinction.
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