Brian Banks

Brian Banks is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Tom Shadyac, written by Doug Atchison, and starring Aldis Hodge as Brian Banks, a high school football linebacker who was falsely accused of rape, convicted, sent to prison and upon his release, attempted to fulfill his dream of making the National Football League. The film premiered at the LA Film Festival in September 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 9, 2019. Plot Brian Banks (Aldis Hodge) is a 27-year-old former high school football star living with his mother (Sherri Shepherd) in Long Beach, California. He is currently on parole and registered as a sex offender due to an incident 11 years prior where he and a classmate, Kennisha (Xosha Roquemore), sneaked off to kiss. When he overheard teachers approaching, he fled to avoid getting caught, leading the scorned Kennisha to falsely accuse him of raping her. On the advice of his attorney, Banks pled no contest to rape and was sentenced to six years of prison. His childhood dreams of becoming an NFL player are further damaged when new laws require him to wear an ankle monitor at all times and stay 2,000 feet away from schools and public gathering spots, preventing him from playing football, and he has trouble finding legitimate employment due to his criminal record. Banks approaches the California Innocence Project hoping to clear his name, and they advise him to write a plea of habeas corpus to the California legal system to get them to retry him. When this fails, Innocence Project founder Justin Brooks (Greg Kinnear) explains that the justice system requires new evidence that incontrovertibly points to his innocence before they will hear his pleas; this excludes DNA evidence, which was taken during the original trial but never used in his defense.