A loving family man Wade Porter suddenly loses everything when he accidentally kills a burglar who broke into his home. Sentenced to spend three years inside a brutal maximum security prison he is forced to share a cell with John Smith a notorious mass murderer. Wade soon learns that to survive he must become the toughest felon of them all as the weak don’t survive...

Felon is a pretty intense movie from writer/director Ric Roman Waugh which follows the life of Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff), a normal man who one night accidentally kills an intruder who breaks into his home. As the intruder was killed while fleeing from the house, and wasn't carrying a weapon, Wade is sentenced to three years in jail for murder. He plans to keep himself to himself, do his time and come home to his wife and son as quickly as possible, but prison life is not what he was expecting, and he has to change in order to survive.

Sharing Wade's cell is mass murderer John Smith (Val Kilmer), a man who brutally killed numerous innocent people for reasons unknown. But, as Wade slowly gets to know Smith, it soon becomes apparent that the two are very much alike.

The movie messes with the audiences perception of ideals of right and wrong. While the criminals are far from being good guys, the prison guards - in particular Lt. Jackson (Harold Perrineau) - are equally not the bastions of law and order that you'd expect. Jackson is a sadist who passes his time by watching the prisoners fight each other.

The film shows how the justice system in America is not perfect - that otherwise law abiding citizens are only one mistake away from a life sentence. While a lot of the situations that ensure Wade is thrown deeper and deeper into the penal system are a little exaggerated, it's easy to see how one false move can bring a person's normal life to an end.

Extras are a little sparse. All we get is The Shark Tank: An Inside Look at Felon (12 min 29 sec behind the scenes featurette) and a bunch of trailers for other releases.

This is a pretty engaging movie that is pretty terrifying when you consider that we are all just one step away from Wade's situation.

8

Pete Boomer