In 2002, seventeen-year-old Brian Banks was wrongfully convicted of rape. At the time of his conviction, Banks was, by all accounts, a rising football star destined to play in the NFL. Tragically, Banks would never realize his dream of going to college and playing professional football.

Brian Banks’s Wrongful Conviction, Plea Deal, and Exoneration

A high-school acquaintance – Wanetta Gibson – shattered that dream one fateful day after she accused Banks of rape and kidnapping following a consensual sexual encounter on the school campus. It was Banks’ word against hers and she was not likely to change her story. After all, Gibson sued the Long Beach Unified School District claiming the school’s lax security provided an unsafe environment that led to the fraudulent rape. She would eventually receive a settlement of 1.5 million dollars.

Brian Banks was faced with an impossible decision at the time – either fight the charges and risk spending 41 years-to-life in prison, or take a plea deal and spend a little over 5 years of actual prison confinement. Although it would mean destroying his chance to go to college and play football, a lengthy probationary period, and a lifetime of registration as a sex offender, Banks chose the lesser of two evils when he pleaded no contest to the charges.

Nearly a decade after his conviction, Gibson recanted her statements and has acknowledged she fabricated the whole story. The California Innocence Project presented this evidence of Banks’ innocence to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office who launched an investigation into the case. After a thorough review of the evidence, the District Attorney’s Office conceded that Banks was wrongfully convicted.

On Thursday, May 24, 2012, Judge Mark C. Kim of the Los Angeles Superior Court reversed Banks’ conviction and ended his nightmare of wrongful conviction. “There comes a time when you have to let go in order to move on. The only thing I wasn’t going to let go was this fight,” Banks said outside of the courthouse after his exoneration.

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His NFL Debut

After the hearing concluded, CIP Director Justin Brooks, in speaking to the press, asked NFL teams to give Brian Banks a chance at football again. “After Brian was exonerated, it was important for me to try and get him somewhat back to his dreams,” Brooks said. Shortly thereafter, Banks received calls from six NFL teams. He tried out with the Kansas City Chiefs, San Diego Chargers, and San Francisco 49ers. Pete Carroll, who had once recruited Brian to play at USC back in 2002, invited Brian to the Seattle Seahawks minicamp to try out. Ultimately, Banks did not get signed by any team in 2012.

On September 20, 2012, Brian Banks signed with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL. He played in two games and made a tackle on a kickoff return before the UFL suspended it’s season a month later.

On April 3, 2013, the Atlanta Falcons signed Brian Banks and he began participating in the Falcons’ practices and training camp. Banks made his NFL debut in a preseason game against the Cincinnati Bengals. He made two tackles in the game. He played three additional games before the Falcons released him on August 30, 2013.

Following the 2013 season, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hired Brian Banks to work in the NFL’s Department of Operations. Banks worked in the NFL’s newly created replay center and also assisted with the league’s social media. Banks worked for the NFL for a few years in New York before getting transferred to Los Angeles. Eventually, he resigned to pursue public speaking opportunities. “If it wasn’t for the California Innocence Project I would n’t have played football, I’d still be a convicted sex offender,” Banks said.

Brian Banks on the Big Screen

In 2017, filming began for a feature film about Brian Banks’ story. The movie, Brian Banks, features Greg Kinnear as Justin Brooks, Aldis Hodge as Banks, and Tiffany Dupont as CIP Attorney Alissa Bjerkhoel. Actors Sherri Shepherd, Morgan Freeman, and Melanie Liburd also star in Brian Banks. Director Tom Shadyac, best known for directing Liar Liar, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Bruce Almighty and The Nutty Professor, directed the film. Doug Atchison, writer of Akeelah and the Bee, wrote the script for Brian Banks. The film closely follows Brian’s road to redemption, including the many legal obstacles he encountered when attempting to gain relief from the courts. While certain aspects have been changed, including the names of some involved in the case, the major story remains the same.

Brian Banks premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) on September 22, 2018. Tickets to the showing sold out so quickly that a second showing, which also sold out, was scheduled for the following day. The Hollywood Reporter and Variety published glowing reviews of Brian Banks, and it won LAFF’s Audience Award for Fiction Feature Film. “Despite the political minefield that it traverses, this movie deserves to be shown — partly because it will stimulate more dialogue on a controversial subject, and also because it showcases outstanding performances, especially a career-defining portrayal by Aldis Hodge in the title role,” Stephen Farber writes in Hollywood Reporter.

Articles on the film have been published by Sports Illustrated and Deadline. In a review of Brian Banks, the Los Angeles Beat says, “’Brian Banks’ is a complicated and layered story negotiating its way between heartbreak, despair, victories and the absolute conviction that the human spirit can triumph against great odds. It’s a movie that is as moving as it is uplifting and demonstrates we can all accomplish anything if we set our minds to if our heart’s in the right place.”

Brian Banks has appeared on several “must-see” film lists for 2019, including “NPR’s Summer Movie Guide: 26 Films Coming Soon To Theaters,” and The New York Times’ “Summer Movies 2019.” The film even made Variety’s list of 31 films that could enter the 2020 Oscars awards race.

On August 2, 2019, Deadline published another movie review, saying: “Brian Banks, a remarkable true story of pure determination to defeat an unjust justice system, is an inspiring winner just like the real-life man who is Brian Banks.” The full review can be found here.

Brian Banks was released in more than 600 theaters throughout the U.S on August 9, 2019. We hope all of you will see the movie. You can search Fandango to see where the film is playing near you. Check out the Brian Banks movie trailer below: