
A family man, Wade Porter, is living the American Dream with his girlfriend Laura and their son Michael: they have a nice house, he has just raised a loan to make his company grow and they are going to get married. However their dream becomes a nightmare when Wade unintentionally kills a burglar that had broken into their house in the middle of the night on his lawn. He is sent to trial and accepts a deal proposed by the prosecutor, being sentenced to three years in prison. D... (Full plot summary below)
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A family man, Wade Porter, is living the American Dream with his girlfriend Laura and their son Michael: they have a nice house, he has just raised a loan to make his company grow and they are going to get married. However their dream becomes a nightmare when Wade unintentionally kills a burglar that had broken into their house in the middle of the night on his lawn. He is sent to trial and accepts a deal proposed by the prosecutor, being sentenced to three years in prison. During the transportation, there is an incident in the bus and Wade is framed and sent to the maximum security wing under the command of the corrupt Lieutenant Jackson. His cell-mate John Smith that was sentenced to life after avenging the death of his family befriends Wade and gives helpful advice and instills hope in Wade that he will return to his family.
Leave your thoughts about Felon.
| The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayFelon's dialogue is overheated and some of its plot twists are preposterous, yet it's still white-knuckle tense, and held together by dozens of small, well-observed moments. |
| VarietyRonnie ScheibStephen Dorff's powerhouse perf as an ordinary Joe trapped behind bars with warring ethnic psychopaths propels Felon well ahead of its expose/exploitation brethren while still avoiding the pious learning curves of Frank Darabont's prestige prison dramas. |
| The New York TimesStephen HoldenMr. Dorff’s hot-wired portrayal of a prisoner under physical and psychic siege gives Felon its emotional through line as Wade’s attitude metamorphoses from stunned disbelief, to terror, to despair, to fury and finally to hope. |
| The Hollywood ReporterStephen FarberThe most startling performance comes from Val Kilmer as Wade's hardened cellmate, a man who combines bitterness with wisdom. |
| Village VoiceEd GonzalezHarold Perrineau gives unintentionally comic expression in Felon to the delineation between his character's public and private scruples. |
| TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghKilmer and Dorff, who was also an executive producer, immerse themselves in difficult roles. |
| New York PostLou LumenickA good cast and disciplined direction add some distinction to Ric Roman Waugh's Felon, which is basically the old tale about an innocent man corrupted by a stay in prison. |
| Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenFelon is not a total bust. What does work is because of the strength of the actors. Dorff brings a visceral sense of desperation to his performance, though he does tend to go too big too quickly. Kilmer gives the film its center as an alien, still presence amid the chaos around him. |
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanVal Kilmer, as a polite horn-rimmed sociopath with a heart of gold, keeps showing up to drop Nietzschean pensées. |
| New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierThere are times when a Kilmer performance is like watching a clock move: well-timed and oddly compelling, even though it's totally predictable. That's the case with Felon, which doesn't belong to Kilmer but which he steals anyhow. |