Penitentia – Review

This film screened at the 21st annual Tallgrass Film Festival.

Legal thrillers are easy to conceive of and hard to pull off. It requires a good case and strong lead performances. Director Chris Lawing has followed the advice of The White Stripes and gone to Wichita, his hometown and setting of his film Penitentia. He’s clearly in love with his hometown despite having serious hangups about its local politics and privatized prisons.

Penitentia follows Alejandro “Ale” Villacano (Glenn Stanton), an ex-con turned lawyer who has gotten on at a big local firm. His mentor and previous employer, Marvin Weissman (Michael W. Schwartz), convinces him to take on a pro-bono case brought to Ale by one of his former inmates. As he delves deeper into his case, he unravels a drug ring that places everyone’s lives on the line. Ale begins a hunt for justice while helping his recently-released friend JD (Rob Wilson) and his schizophrenic sister, Shareen (Natasha Coppola-Shalom) escape from the drug ring’s clutches.

Lawing channels his father, Jim Lawing, into the character of Marvin, creating a compelling protagonist in Ale by channeling Lawing’s generosity and devotion into a mentorship role. Jim Lawing was known to be generous to a fault, being described as “a really good lawyer for someone who can’t afford one.” This is a project about standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves and that sentiment was Jim Lawing’s entire worldview. I grew up hearing stories of this hero lawyer and it grounds Penitentia in a reality that sells its story.

Stanton and Schwartz are the stars of this thing and the highlight performances in the film. The two navigate an estranged pseudo-father-son relationship with a delicacy and sweetness unfortunately lacking in most other onscreen pairings. Luckily this relationship is the heart and soul of the film and these two are more than up to the task. Stanton tackles a role that requires action star chops without any true action scenes, a firm jawline clenched in determination that never feels too much but skirts just close enough to land in the sweet spot. Schwartz is a delight. His charm reminds one of Judd Hirsch without the bite. With a twinkle in his eye and a weight on his heart, Michael W. Schwartz steals almost every scene he’s in.

I wonder if everyone else notices certain things when the film is set in their hometown. Living here has led me to view excessive and specific drone photography of Wichita locations to become pornographic after a while and Penitentia falls prey to this premise. Around the fourth or fifth time I was given a long take over the Arkansas River, the Keeper of the Plains caught in view with the Epic Center in the background, I finally rolled my eyes. I love my city, don’t get me wrong, but there’s an excess of it displayed. Only a few shots would give the geography and feel to a wider audience. The amount of Wichita-specific porn in this film is a bit silly.

The scathing look at classism and corporate politics is unfortunately spot-on. It isn’t just the characters but the decision to structure their images, locations, and even vehicles (or lack thereof). Wichita has a large chunk of the population that was raised in homes that didn’t have time to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, too focused on trying to make it from one day to the next to struggle upward. Lawing acknowledges that it can be done through the character of Ale but makes sure to note that his move from a prison jumpsuit to the bed of his boss’s daughter took the right people helping him. It’s also noted that there is a distinct lack of care or understanding from the more comfortable citizenry towards those with less. I grew up in one of those households and it still makes me sick.

Penitentia does, ultimately, end in a climax that will feel anticlimactic to some. I found it a perfect note that felt triumphant with a bittersweet bite on the back end. Chris Lawing has given us a fine film about Wichita, Kansas, and its population. I won’t lie, I was into this one and I do hope a wider audience is given a chance to take a look at my hometown.