Felon – How one decision can have life changing effects for not only you, but your family as well…
Stephen Dorff is Wade Porter who I would submit to you is your average American trying to live the American dream. He has a beautiful wife Laura Porter played by Marisol Nichols, a young son and a small thriving construction business.
Everything seems to be going well for Wade. He and his wife will soon be getting married. His construction business is taking off and he was just approved for a loan that will help expand his business. Until one dark night that is. While sleeping Wade and his wife hear a sound coming from inside their house. Wade grabs a baseball bat from underneath the bed and goes toinvestigate. He quickly finds out that someone was in his home and trying to escape. Wade gives chase, follows the intruder outside and tries to get him to stop. While Wade is chasing him the manstarts to reach for something in his pocket and Wade has no clue as to what iti s. He swings the bat while aiming for his shoulder but the stranger ducks and inadvertently is hit in the head. It’s a one shot, one kill scenario. The intruder goes down, dead on the spot.
The police are summoned, of course, and because the intruder was fleeing the home, there was no threat to Wade or his family any longer and the use of deadly force was unnecessary. Wade is arrested for murder.
Wade has his day in court and the District Attorney offers him a plea to involuntary manslaughter. He takes the plea and so begins the rest of the story as he becomes exposed to life inside one of California’s prisons.
The acting was very good overall. You could easily distinguish the ‘big boys’ such as Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff’s abilities from those with not so big of a resume (Marisol Nichols). I haven’t seen much from Val Kilmer where I had been truly impressed. Although his makeup could have been done a little better (facial hair…you’ll see what I mean) he played his role as the seasoned convict very well. John Smith (Val Kilmer) takes Wade underneath his wings and eventually the two become friends.
As Wade struggles to learn how to survive in prison he is faced with several obstacles. The first is that although there are gangs inside of prison, inmates separate themselves by race first and foremost. And if you are to survive in prison you need to find out who you fit in with and fast -- a lone duck won’t last long by himself.
The second obstacle is dealing with corrupt prison staff. Although Felon is fictional, there are surprising amount of facts integrated into the movie. There have been reports of prison guards who allow inmates to fight and engage in betting to see who will win. However, this is taken a bit farther in the movie.
Lastly, Wade is not only faced with his own suffering while behind bars but the suffering of his family which he left behind. The decision from his wife whether to stay with him and wait out his sentence or not and the financial struggle she deals with on her own.
The plot of Felon you may have seen before in movies like Lock Up but I haven’t seen anything that incorporated this much realism in to a film pertaining to crime and corrections. Whoever they hired to advise them did a really good job. From a realistic plea deal, to correct housing unit numbers you’ll see things in the movie that you could go and confirm on your own if you so choose to.
I hadn’t heard of Felon on my own at all. In fact, I came across someone mentioning it in the forums and decided to give it a try. Overall, I was very pleased with the movie. Although you might be able to guess the ending from quite a distance, there are still enough turns, twists, drama -- not to mention violence -- to keep your eyeballs glued to the screen.
