When they're woken up in the middle of the night to noises, Wade chases a burglar out of the house and hits him with a baseball bat, crushing his skull. Since the man is outside his house and doesn't have a weapon, Wade is sent to prison for murder. Once on the inside, Wade learns that life in prison is like nothing he has ever experienced in his life. Not only does he have to learn who's in what gang and how to deal with them, but he also has to deal with Lt. Jackson (Harold Perrineau). Jackson effectively runs the prison and decides what happens to whom. He isn't the nicest man in the world, far from it. Jackson makes life in hell even worse.
At least Wade ends up in a cell with John Smith (Val Kilmer). Even though Smith is a mass murderer, he is a decent guy to Wade. He tries to help him learn how to deal with the system and try to make it out and back to his family alive, if they're even still there to come back to. Laura has to deal with trying to keep their life going outside of the prison. Unfortunately she's running out of money very quickly. Without Wade to keep the business going, there's no money coming in. She has to figure out if she can even afford to wait for him to come back to her and Michael, or if she even wants to. Is he going to come out of prison as the same man he was when he went in?
Felon is a wonderful movie. It is probably the best prison drama I have ever seen, and that includse The Shawshank Redemption. Felon even makes you feel for the guys that you know are guilty. Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer are truly fantastic actors. Harold Perrineau is too. He shows a completely different side of himself from Oz, and not just because he's a guard instead of an inmate. They all portray their characters so well that you forget completely that you're watching an actor. They have become the role.
As I've already said, Felon is just amazing. I cannot recommend it for all audiences, simply for the sheer violence of the movie. Even though it is not about the violence, there is a lot of bloodshed. But I highly recommend it for any adult audience. It is a must see movie, you need to go get it today.
