On DVD: Felon -- The Surprise I've Been Looking For

Often when writing about why I watch so many terrible straight-to-DVD films, I talk about finding those rare gems that take you by surprise, those movies you never see coming, that simply had no place in theaters or were completely ignored by the studios. Felon, now available from Sony Pictures, is that kind of a find. When I first pulled this out of the envelope I chuckled. The cover looks goofy as all get-out and my natural instincts told me that there's no way a good movie starring Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer didn't make it to theaters. This had to be a stinker. So I sat down and began what would prove to be a weird experience.

Felon is emphatically not a mainstream movie. In fact, for the first hour of the film it's hard to believe that there's actually a plot to it. It is, at first, very much a day-in-the-life kind of movie, except in prison. Dorff plays a construction contractor who catches a guy breaking into his home. When the guy runs out the door, Dorff chases him, swings a baseball bat and kills the guy in one stroke. Now here in Texas that's legal. And the situation as presented in the film probably wouldn't even get you a night in the pokey. But in California (where this is set) that's murder. Sissies.

The next hour is all about watching Dorff's life go into the crapper. His fiancée is running out of money and can't afford their home while taking care of their son. He's accidentally found himself embroiled in a gang assassination and covers for the murderer (to save his own hide with the gangs) putting him at odds with the guards. And to make matters worse, he's getting dragged further and further into prison life, so much so that his fiancée barely recognizes him. The film is very much about how awful our prison system is and how it perpetuates the creation of criminals rather than correcting the behavior. And for the most part, this film is a well acted, but somewhat hollow in its narrative. It all feels very been there, done that.

But then things start getting interesting as the film begins to swing focus on Val Kilmer, Dorff's cellmate and an almost Zen-like deranged killer who murdered 17 people. And when he gets around to describing what he did and why, your jaw will drop. From that moment on things look up. The plot begins to move briskly and every last bit of setup pays off in a spectacular nail-biter of an ending. What at first seemed like a lack of story proves instead to be just carefully structured threads of one.

Woven together by a solid, noteworthy performance by Dorff and an incredible performance by a scene-stealing Kilmer, everyone in this film pulls their weight, from many of the unknowns to great character actors like Sam Shepard and Harold Perrineau (Lost, Oz). The film's only real flaws are the tedium of the slow buildup and one scene of a strip search that just feels a little gratuitous and out of place.

But it is a film that earns back everything it asks of the audience, and gets better and better every moment. If you're in any way a fan of any of these actors, especially Val Kilmer, you owe it to yourself to seek this one out. Ignore the direct-to-video look of the box. Here's an indie geared toward an audience ready to be taken on a journey. Consider it highly recommended.

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