At face value, Felon is just another generic prison movie, with gritty violence and no-holds-barred language; under the surface, it is about family. Porter is in prison because he killed a man who broke into the house through the window of his young son’s bedroom; Smith ended up in prison for taking excessive revenge on the people who raped and murdered his wife and daughter. The overlying theme is about going beyond the limit for the ones you love and never once regretting it.

The plot is as decent as one could expect for a limited-release film such as this, but the acting is mixed. As the one with the most experience, one would expect Kilmer to be the most skilled actor on the set, but he falls short. A combination of the writing of the character and the actor’s portrayal of him cause Smith to be one-dimensional and flat. Porter’s character is multi-dimensional, but Dorff just couldn’t muster the amount of emotion necessary to drive the character through the story.

The best acting is delivered by Harold Perrineau of “Lost” portraying his character, Lt. Jackson. Jackson is the warden of the prison and falls into the stereotypical role seen in most prison movies. What sets the character apart is the duality presented between his life at the prison and his life outside. While working at the prison, he is callous and encourages violence among inmates to entertain himself; outside the prison walls he is a friendly family man. Kilmer’s character says it best: “Prison desensitizes you.”

The story delves further into the cliché by having Porter need to fight the unjust warden to get his life back and save the poor prisoners from the cruel and unusual punishment the prison has dealt them. While this is the same old story told a thousand times, the way it is done in Felon is more creative and interesting than most other movies. Little twists and turns along the way keep the viewer on his toes, while not reaching so far into the absurd that the story loses any bit of credibility it might have.