Culture Blues

The Instant Movie Club: Felon

Every week, your friends at Culture Blues get together to watch a movie from their Netflix Instant queue. Then, they sit down divided by glass to talk about it. This is The Instant Movie Club.

This week, we’ll be discussing Felon, a direct-to-DVD prison drama starring Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff. The below discussion contains spoilers.

Next Week: Broken Embraces. Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz reunite for a film that A.O. Scott called "grave and effervescent, tender and cruel."

Jeremiah: There's no shortage of good prison narratives already out there. Everything from The Shawshank Redemption to Oz to Let's Go to Prison (jk - sort of). And since the media is full of bleeding heart liberals, most of these tales show the squares in their big, luxurious houses just how degrading and dehumanizing jail is. That's what Felon does for most of its runtime as well. In fact, about 99% of it. That's one of the problems with Felon; it treads on familiar ground that's already been walked by much more capable and interesting stories.

Then, at the very end, Val Kilmer's character offers some posthumous advice to Stephen Dorff, telling him that he should use the toughening up in jail as a positive force in his life, to make him prepared to kill (again) to protect his family. That's nice and all, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger blah blah blah. But it's also disgusting. The idea that going to prison, learning that you have to buddy up with the Aryans, and becoming a violent psychopath makes you better equipped to deal with life on the outside is pretty frightening. Hell maybe there is even some truth in that considering the compromised world we live in, but it comes out of nowhere at the end of Felon and seems antithetical to the rest of the movie. Had Felon really been about that, it probably would have been a more interesting film, though one I probably would have liked less.

Felon succeeds at a few things before falling terribly short in the end. The contrivances of Hawke's incredibly unfair prison term seemed like a bit much at times, but I still felt indignant rage towards the system that allows this sort of thing to happen, and I'm sure much more egregious cases can be found in the real world. The idea that prison has a dehumanizing effect on the guards as well as the inmates is emphasized here more than other films I've seen. The "we're all in prison" line is excellent. This is another area where Felon could have perhaps gone further and therefore distinguished itself. I also liked the gritty, non stylized violence. On a direct-to-dvd film like this, the temptation to make a "cool" film must be great, but there are not really any "cool" fight scenes here.

I respect what Felon was able to do with just a few locations and a seemingly very limited budget. It only wears out its welcome late in the film. But it's also a mediocre, forgettable prison movie that seems to fight against the aspects that could have actually made it a more unique, but still flawed, movie.

Ben: Jeremiah and I have a habit of disagreeing with each other during several of the IMC discussions, and with that in mind I’d like to say that Felon is perhaps the greatest film ever made.

Okay, so that’s not even remotely true. But all things considered, I came away at least somewhat satisfied. Wouldn’t that be a shitty endorsement to put on the back of the DVD box? I do agree with my colleague that there are certain aspects of this film that were worth exploring more. There is something inherently disturbing about this world that seeps out of almost every character; it's as if most of them have already given up, and yet they still project the image of fighting it. You really begin to understand how easy it might be to become someone else behind bars. When we first meet Stephen Dorff’s character it seems impossible that he’s going to become the enforcer of a skinhead prison gang, but yet there he is, just hammering people in the face. One of my favorite aspects of this film is how seamless that transition is. Lt. Jackson seems nice enough in the grocery store, yet there he is shooting people for not playing his sick games. Also, this is another great example of Val Kilmer selecting scripts by just throwing darts at them or something. What the hell, man? He really shines though. I love the contrast of how badass he is, and yet he still worries day and night about his super fucked up prison etiquette.

I tend to believe that there are probably some pretty messed up prison guards out there, and I’m sure people protect their co-workers but I just can’t imagine Lt. Jackson could get away with this crap for as long as he did. Normally stuff like that doesn’t take me out of a film, because I fully believe in the suspension of disbelief, but in this case it did. I don’t know. The end is forced as all get-out as well. We all knew that one guard would eventually try to stand up to his psychotic superior, and I pegged it early on that Val would be sacrificing himself. It just felt like everyone was going through the motions at that point.

There are some golden moments here, and a bunch of crap. I was never bored, but it's not a viewing experience that will stick with me. I’m interested to hear what Jeff thought, as he recently beat a burglar to death at the Culture Blues headquarters.

Jeff: Thanks for bringing that up, Ben. While I can’t speak to specifics because of the pending litigation, let’s just say it’s a good thing that Culture Blues keeps a lawyer on retainer for instances where I confuse the office cleaning crew for burglars. No shitty public defender for us! Fast life baby!

So anyway, Felon. Yeah. Here’s some more faint praise for the back of the DVD: you guys didn’t do a bad job. I mean, I was never miserable while watching. The performances are fine. The plot is standard prison boilerplate, but it’s entertaining enough. The message is muddled, but who cares when there are so many fight scenes, right? The digital video they chose to shoot on looked cheap, but I got past that. Sound levels were all over the place - that was annoying. Too many close-ups - also annoying. But, I admire what they did with locations on a shoestring budget. I liked yelling “WAAAAALT!” whenever Harold Perrineau popped up.

Hmm. What else?

I felt bad for the girl that played Stephen Dorff’s wife when she took her shirt off. Oh come on sweetheart, it’s Felon. You don’t have to do that for Felon. Put those away.

Felon’s biggest problems are that it’s just not all that compelling while you’re watching and it’s almost instantly forgettable. I just watched it a couple days ago and it’s already fading. There’s just not much here worth discussing. Felon is a movie you catch at 3AM on TNT and watch for a little while – hey, this isn’t half bad, is that Val Kilmer?

We should’ve just watched a bunch of Oz episodes.

Oh, and where was all the rape? That was another letdown. I’m sitting here watching Felon as it goes on, and on, and on, and I’m like when is somebody going to get F’ed in the A? Or get forced to S a D? Or get E’d in the F while another guy TF’s the S out of the first guys’ SBs?

Geez. Is that so much to ask for?

Jason: I'm going to be a snob for a moment.

Heh…

For a moment.

I felt insulted by Felon. Most of the movie was overly simplistic and, in some cases, downright stupid. Waah waaah waaah.

Felon lacked any depth other than the (regrettably predictable) arcs of the main players. Everything else was superficial and not at all fulfilling. Before he goes to jail, all we know about Porter is that he works hard, recently got approved (by mail) for a small business loan and is planning a wedding with the mother of his bastard child. When his fiancée can't find a job (I won't make a stripper joke here, but for the record I would like to point out that there is one to be made), she spends his small business loan.

<rolls eyes>

So much for that dream!

When that money dries up, he casually advises her to sell the house.

My biggest disappointment was the absence of a thorough account of any of the events outside of this guy actually being in prison. After a lame, three-minute argument between Laura Porter (how do they already have the same last name?) and her mother, she decides to leave her felonious fiancée. After she realizes how silly it is to leave a guy doing so little time (he ain’t servin no real bid), she makes a call to some old ass prison guard who just so happens to have a contact with the Federale.

One shanking and two bullets to the chest later, our movie is over.

If we believe Felon, America’s prisons solely exist for fighting, stabbing, and breaking people down. As Jeff points out, there isn’t even any rape. Wackjuice.

Is Felon an unremarkable but competent and worthwhile prison drama, a pale imitation of better entries in the genre, or simply a low budget pile of dung? Also, would you have liked the movie more or less if it had included prison rape? Let us know in the comments section.

Next week: Broken Embraces

Tagged as: don't show your breasts for movies no one will see, felon, harold perrineau, oz is better, prison movies, stephen dorff, val kilmer