Felon

Felon
I am proud of this film and I hope you will all go to see it. I said yes to the project because of New Mexico, Stephen, the Director, and the subject, which is gravely important.

Every week in the U.S. we put 1,000 new people behind bars, yet we have the highest crime rate in the world. We are breeding criminals in this present arcane system. I encourage all to read about Canada’s great reform system and compare it to ours.”

~Peace, Val Kilmer

No Rules, No Hope, No Way Out
By Prairie Miller

Grim Statistics

Nearly two and a half million Americans are in prison today, and that number is increasing by one thousand a week. This grim statistic defining a penal system that it is no longer about rehabilitation, remorse, or redemption, but simply detention and punishment under the most brutal and dehumanizing circumstances, is at the heart of the powerhouse prison drama, ‘Felon.’

Stephen Dorff, who was last spotted as a scary sexual sadist in Shadowboxer, sweats it out in Felon as Wade. He’s a San Diego family man with a three year old son, a thriving construction business, and a devoted girlfriend (Marisol Nichols) he’s about to marry, when he suddenly finds himself incarcerated in the big house after he kills an intruder following a home invasion.

Murder Charges

Because Wade hit the fleeing man on the head outside his house and the intruder died from the blow, Wade is charged with second degree murder since the death did not occur in his home. In order to avoid a life sentence, Wade reluctantly pleads down to involuntary manslaughter, which could result in his release in little more than a year. But, his troubles are just beginning as he’s sent off to Corcoran State Prison. In this house of horrors, filled with bloodthirsty inmates and violent guards, Wade finds himself trapped in a kind of roach motel situation where the notion of checking out barely exists, as hard time for unruly behavior often is instigated by the guards; compounds into ever escalating sentences.

Actual Events

Based on actual atrocities at Corcoran State Prison and filmed at the New Mexico State Penitentiary, which was the scene of the deadliest prison riot ever in US history, Felon captures the lethal chain of events in which any man can seemingly be turned into a monster, just trying to survive the savagery all around him. And as Wade is soon to learn, the guards run what they term ‘gladiator school’ in the prison yard. There the most vicious inmates are set upon each other for sport by the guards, who place bets on the winners. Then, they call time out by shooting them and sending the wounded off to the infirmary.

Mesmerizing Performance

Dorff gives a mesmerizing, devastating performance as he evolves from stunned civilian to brutalized inmate and dangerous prison thug himself. But ultimately transforming into a tested man who rediscovers his own humanity by way of deciphering the key to his liberation from injustice, through solidarity of the oppressed behind prison walls, and a healing connection to his destroyed family on the outside.

And Val Kilmer as Smith, an introspective older lifer and Wade’s cellmate imparting his own peculiar tough love wisdom to the younger man, along with Sam Shepard as Smith’s mysterious, supportive visitor and friend, likewise bring to this story a rugged but elevating fortitude illuminating human hope and decisive closure, even in the most tragic circumstances.

Cast

Anne Archer, Brittany Perrineau, Chris Browning, Greg Serano, Harold Perrineau, Johnny Lewis, Marisol Nichols, Nate Parker, Nick Chinlund, Sam Shepard, Stephen Dorff, and Val Kilmer

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