Felon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Felon Blu-ray Movie Review

This engaging prison drama is worth watching.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 10, 2008

The weak are the ones who cannot avoid trouble.

The prison-centric film, despite its generally storied success as a genre, has only so many plot devices from which it can derive its story. Films like Escape From Alcatraz and the television show "Prison Break," obviously from their titles, focus on the escape angle. Films such as Lock Up look at the abuse of prisoners and the disregard for the law by the law itself on the inside. Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape venture into the military prison/P.O.W. camp angle and Chicken Run is an animated tale that spoofs the best of the military prison dramas. Finally, films like The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption delve into the more spiritual, soul-searching angle that incarceration engenders in many. The 2008 film Felon is most closely related to Sylvester Stallone's Lock Up in approach and theme. It is the story of the corruption of the system and contempt for the prisoners on the inside, perhaps the only place in the world where the law can be lawless, where justice may be manipulated or tossed aside, and where the only one that truly has your back is you.

What? Nobody brought the dodge ball?

Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff, World Trade Center) is an average Joe with a child and fiance, slowly but surely building up his construction business and ensuring a bright future for his family. His life is forever changed when he awakens to the sound of a burglar in the house. Wade chases the theif from his home and strikes him with a baseball bat in his front yard, killing the man instantly. Because Wade cannot claim self-defense as the burglar was killed outside the home, Wade plea bargains, confesses his guilt to a charge of involuntary manslaughter, and is sentenced to a three-year prison term. On the way to prison, there is an incident on the bus transporting the prisoners. One inmate is killed, and Wade ends up holding the murder weapon. Suddenly, he finds himself in one of the worst places on Earth -- "the shoe," a small corner of the prison run by the sadistic Lt. Jackson (Harold Perrineau, 28 Weeks Later) where he allows the prisoners to fight one another in "the yard," a small, walled-off exercise area that is monitored only by the guards and a surveillance camera that is regularly manipulated by the guards to erase evidence of their mishandling of prison justice. Jackson thrives on threats and violence, running the shoe and the yard his way, breaking up every fight with less-than-lethal rounds and, sometimes, live rifle ammunition. When Wade receives John Smith (Val Kilmer, The Doors), a mass murderer as a cell mate, he begins to better understand the system he's in and the importance of race in the joint ("prison ain't about street gangs, it's about race," Smith tells Wade). As every days goes by, with every word he speaks, and with every step he takes in the yard, Wade's life hangs in the balance as he makes more enemies, both with the inmates and the guards themselves.

Felon is solid entertainment and does what its meant to do very well: strike fear into the hearts of every viewer while maintaining a level of artistic license for entertainment purposes that keeps the story flowing, the audience on the edge of their seats, and never quite sure who, or what, to root for, outside of Wade. The depiction of not only the external depravity and demoralizing aspects of prison life, but also the internal agony of both the incarcerated and their families on the outside is handled well here. Throughout the movie, tension remains high and we cannot help but experience that deep-in-the-gut nervousness than shakes us to the core. We're literally transported into the prison, we become an inmate, and every move effects us as much as it does the characters. In Felon, the tables are turned on the viewer as both criminal and lawman are depicted as evil, and the law is, arguably, portrayed as the worse of the two. The movie certainly does not paint the entire justice and prison guard system in a negative light. There are good guys and bad guys on both sides of the bars to be sure, but setting the action in an isolated wing and providing some solid insight into the Lt. Jackson character and fleshing out his personality and motivations behind his action both inside and outside of the prison walls helps us better understand his character and root harder against him.

Director Ric Roman Waugh, a stuntman by trade who has worked on films such as The Last of the Mohicans, The Last Action Hero, and Total Recall, offers frenetic yet steady direction in Felon, and while a certain level of stylization is here, it plays second fiddle to the story, making this film succeed where Belly failed. Handheld, jerky camera movements represent the primary filming style, and like many good war movies (Saving Private Ryan), this style places us firmly in the action. So often we feel like a silent participant in the film, and this heightens the feel and tension of the movie greatly. When characters rise from a table, the camera rises form a seated position and comes back down when the characters return to their seats. In other instances, the camera is positioned and moved in the yard to not only show us the action, but put us in the midst of the action. It's literally our eye into the world of Felon. Although that's the case with every other film ever made, in Felon, Roman Waugh allows us to get closer to the action thanks to his slick work. The actors, too, are good, though not exceptional. Val Kilmer is the Gary Oldman of the movie, portraying a character whom we barely recognize as the actor. Dorff is solid in his portrayal of a man who finds himself somewhere he never thought he would be, and as he sinks further into the gritty world of the shoe, he becomes a man lost and confused, but toughening up and struggling to survive. Perrineau, too, portrays his character with a hard-to-judge veneer that only reveals itself over time.

Felon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented on Blu-ray high definition with a 1080p, 1.85:1 transfer, Felon doesn't offer much in the way of a visual "wow" factor, but the video quality is fine in the context of what the movie shows us. The movie is extremely grainy, but offers solid detail, especially facial detail. The grain never hinders textures, as the walls of the yard where the prisoners exercise and fight have a roughness to them that adds some realism to the scenes. The cold, gray, unforgiving interior of the prison doesn't offer anything in terms of visual pizzaz, but the transfer holds up well and shows us as much detail and life as the sets allow in 1080p. Clothing looks good, too, with the patches on the prison guard's uniforms standing out as not only colorful against the dark blue backdrop of the sleeve, but in the level of visible detail that makes up the embroidery on the patch and the stitching used to fix it to the sleeve. Likewise, the yellow jump suits worn by the inmates stand out against the mostly mundane set pieces, and the yellow seems a bit brighter as a result. Flesh tones appear accurate and black levels are never poor. Overall, Felon, like The Counterfeiters, offers an extremely grainy image that stays true to the tone of the film.

Felon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Felon puts viewers in the slammer with its lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack. The audio is much more interesting than the visuals, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily leaps and bounds better in quality. Strong bass is palpable from the very beginning as a nice low rumble subtly rattles the furniture of your living room. The audio experience is often immersive in feel. A prison riot in chapter three is a harrowing listen that places viewers in the middle of the prison. The film's powerful score swells and sounds great as it emanates from every speaker with a nice theatrical presence. Sound effects are powerful and impressive. When the rumbling of a heavy prison security door slides open from right to left, the sound flows across the room as it should. Music is often bass-heavy and arrives with a solid low end that adds quite a bit of tension to the movie. Gun shots ring out with power, be they the beanbag rounds fired at the prisoners, or several gunshots from a Ruger Mini-14 heard throughout the film. Dialogue reproduction never became problematic as it was audible and focused in the center. Felon won't set your sound system ablaze, but listeners need not worry that the disc is anything short of adequate, either.

Felon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Felon arrives on Blu-ray with only one movie-related extra, a featurette entitled The Shark Tank: An Inside Look at 'Felon' (1080p, 13:01). Director Ric Roman Waugh discusses his reasons behind making the film, the two-year process of writing the film, the authenticity of the story, and reactions of former prisoners. The feature delves into filming locations, shooting on a budget, and more mundane details. Roman Waugh comes off as intelligent and sincere, and is deservedly proud of this movie. I'm eager to see more work from him in the future. This disc also contains trailers for Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, The Fall, Resident Evil: Degeneration, 88 Minutes, Prom Night, Vantage Point, Money Train, S.W.A.T., We Own the Night, and Sony's Blu-ray promotional piece. Finally, this disc is also BD-Live (profile 2.0) compliant, but at the time of publishing this disc's page was not available.

Felon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Felon is a solid yet unexceptional film. It offers good entertainment yet it is never ground-breaking or life-changing in any way, unless it scares you straight. There is only so much you can do with a prison-themed film, and while Felon doesn't chart any new territory, it reminds us of why we've traveled these roads so many times before and lost ourselves in a world that seems distant to many, a place we're fascinated by yet hope we never get to go. Felon brings its intriguing, dangerous, and entertaining setting to Blu-ray in a decent yet unspectacular package. The video is edgy and grainy, which may not be to everyone's liking, but it suits the mood of the film rather well. The audio quality is solid as the TrueHD track immerses us into the world of Felon, but the disc stops there, offering very little in the way of supplemental materials. The movie is definitely worth checking out, but with a price tag of $26.95 at time of writing, it's hard to recommend the movie as a purchase before seeing it. Only the most ardent collectors should permanently add this disc to their collections before screening it first.