My review of Felon on Blu-ray Disc is online at filmfreakcentral.net:
If Jeffrey Lebowski had made a few wrong turns in life-if, let’s say,
he had brutally murdered some very bad men, as well as their
families-he may have turned out not entirely unlike John Smith, the
hulkingly mellow convict played by a moustachioed, goateed Val Kilmer
in Felon. Judging from the wide berth the rest of the inmates
give him, Smith is known as the silent-but-deadly type. Kilmer plays
him from behind a whole bunch of prison tattoos with a steely glare,
but also with a kind of openness that doesn’t immediately compute.
Although he’s tagged as a sociopath, he’s really just the opposite. He
believes in justice, and he longs for the death sentence he feels his
crimes deserve.