"Felon" Movie Review

A friend of mine clued me in to this movie at a party. It was a friend I trusted, and so I wanted to see it even though I had never heard of it. Why had I never heard of it? I don't have a clue. The movie was awesome. Great premise, great acting, great tension, and excellent struggles, both mentally and physically. Felon is one to see if you are at all interested in life behind prison doors.

The movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117385/) involves a hard-working family man who accidentally kills a criminal while trying to defend his home. Wade (played by Stephen Dorff) is then charged with murder and catches a few years in the pen. Of course he is completely unprepared and unfamiliar with such a lifestyle, and so we watch as he becomes "institutionalized" by the system.

He is forced to fight and prove himself again and again until finally he finds a mentor in John Smith (played by a very unrecognizable Val Kilmer), a lifer who has a lot of pull with the top dogs. They eventually become good friends and develop a ploy to bring down the extremely crooked prison guards who ultimately want to murder the inmates.

As I always say in my reviews, I do not like to write spoilers and so I'll leave the majority of the really cool stuff out, but trust me '" there is enough cool stuff in that movie to keep you watching it. I was actually disappointed when it was over. Felon delivers a cold, hard look into prison life that I believe to be eerily accurate. It is definitely no place for the weak, and it has its own hierarchy. I give the movie four stars easy, and would recommend it to just about anyone.