A hard-hitting portrayal of life behind bars, Felon is a viciously effective little film.
A loving family man with a promising future, Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff) suddenly loses everything when he accidentally kills the burglar who broke into his home. Convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Wade is sentenced to spend the next three years inside a maximum security facility where the rules of society no longer apply. Forced to share a cell with a notorious mass murderer (Val Kilmer) and subjected to brutal beatings orchestrated by the sadistic head prison guard (Harold Perrineau), Wade soon realizes he's in for the fight of his life.
Prison life has become a popular subject. With TV shows such as MSNBC's "Lockdown" and "Jail" from the producers of "Cops," the reality format has lead the way. Then, of course, there is the long-running drama "Prison Break" on Fox. Into this climate comes Felon, written and directed by veteran stuntman Ric Roman Waugh.
The film succeeds because of its consistently intriguing character development. First off, you have Stephen Dorff in the everyman role, a man punished for doing what he thought was right: protecting his family. You sympathize with his plight right from the beginning because when push comes to shove, most anyone would have done what he did. He struggles with life behind bars because he misses his wife (Marisol Nichols) and son (Vincent Miller) more than anything. It pains him that he will miss the formative years of watching his son grow up. His wife struggles almost as much as she becomes frustrated and depressed while trying to move on while feeling like her life is stuck in limbo until the love of her life is allowed to come home. On top of that, she has the very real problem of trying to support her son on her own when her husband was the one who had generated much of the income before via his construction business.
Then there is the head prison guard (Harold Perrineau). A man who tells his son to turn the other cheek when faced with school yard bullies but then himself gleefully initiates fights among the prisoners for his own perverse enjoyment. A fellow prison guard (Nate Parker) and a rookie on the job at first respects him because of his position but slowly begins to realize just how twisted and wrong the man's actions are. Lastly, there is John Smith (Val Kilmer), a serial killer who systematically murderered two entire families for a total of 17 people. A "lifer," he is respected among prisoners, and has a lot of wisdom to impart to Wade about how to survive in the new world he finds himself thrust into.
The film benefits immensely from stellar acting. Dorff is simply superb, bringing a mix of toughness and likeability to his role. Nichols is equally good, bringing raw emotion to her role. Perrineau is able to shift from acting like a phony nice guy outside of work to a angry, contentious jerk while on the job. And Kilmer is perfectly cast; always thinking but also uniquely compassionate.
You won't find a recent film that does a better job of portraying prison life than Felon.
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