Stars: Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leon, Juliette Lewis, Peter Gallagher, Clea DuVall
Running time: 107 mins
Rating: ★★★

HERE we go with one of those real life stories that sound like they’ve been made up – a wife and mother puts herself through college and law school to become a lawyer so she can get her older brother out of prison for the murder he didn’t commit.

This is taking defending the family honour to the extreme but who better to embody this crusading woman, Betty Anne Waters, than double Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank?

She won her first Oscar in 2000 for playing a transgender teenager in Boys Don’t Cry. Five years later she triumphed in the boxing ring, collecting another best actress Oscar for her portrayal of a boxer in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby.

The part of Betty Anne Waters offers a third role to get her dramatic teeth into and she doesn’t waste the opportunity to produce another heartfelt performance.

Kenny (Rockwell) is Betty’s older brother and local cop Nancy Taylor (Leo) isn’t pleased when he’s released after being questioned about the murder of a diner waitress.

She’s happier two years later when the testimony of two of his former girlfriends (Lewis and Du- Vall) results in a murder conviction and a life sentence without parole for Kenny.

Betty refuses to accept his guilt and starts studying to become a lawyer in order to prove his innocence.

This puts almost unbearable pressure on her family and finances but she won’t let go.

Her marriage breaks up, leaving her to raise her two children by herself, but there’s help from law school friend Abra Rice (Driver) and attorney Barry Scheck (Gallagher) from an organisation devoted to helping wrongly convicted people overturn their sentences.

In real life it took her 18 years to get justice, which Tony Goldwyn’s film gets through in a swift 107 minutes but never quite delivers the emotional punch that you expect.