First Time Felon

Greg Yance finds himself busted for drugs and is sentenced to five years without parole . At his trial he is given a choice between serving his sentence in a tough penitentiary or to be sent to a tough boot camp

As soon as the opening sequence rolled I came on to this page only to find it's a TVM . Oh dear not doubt a PG cert , a sort of disease of the week movie for homeboys . Quickly it became clear this was a HBO production with graphic language . The fact is I'm a big fan of HBO drama OZ and the first fifteen minutes played out like that classic show as Greg Yance finds himself quite literally having to fight for his life in an uncaring and brutal prison system

Yance is given a choice of staying in the state pen or shipping out to a tough boot camp . You do think that in that case we'll be watching a sort of civilian version of FULL METAL JACKET . Rules are rules and somewhat strangely the rules of the camp involve no swearing . This means the film is conspicuous by missing a Sgt Hartman type character full of highly quotable foul mouthed language

FIRST TIME FELON is certainly more enjoyable and impressive than a lot of TVMs I've seen and his competently directed by Charles S Dutton and competently acted by a mainly black cast . The problem is that the early sequences are so impressive the rest of the film doesn't sustain the hard hitting drama the story is capable of and becomes a bit too preachy the more it continues

I thought that this would be another preachy movie about black kids in jail and all their problems. I was wrong. This is about black kids will all sorts of problems in and out of jail but it is done very tightly and kept up my interest throughout. Omar Epps is getting a lot of well deserved credit for his acting but my thumbs up goes to the director Charles S. Dutton who I would like to see do other films. The music with the end credits was beautiful and sounded like the high class music that you hear with much bigger budget movies. I recommend that everyone see this movie once. You will not regret it.

This will be my first comment posting due to the fact that this is first time I felt the need to do so. I caught this movie somewhere towards the beginning and within 10 minutes it had pulled me in to the point where I could not step away. At first I thought it was going to be a "prison movie" but turned out to be so much more. When the boot camp sequence ended the movie just got better and better. Omar Epps was tremendous in this movie and actually had me caring about the character ,which never happens to me to the point that it did here. I felt that I was watching someones life story and not fiction,and it turned out I was right after signing on here. Omar made this movie very believable and I would recommend you see this movie. I will watch it again.

More interesting than entertaining, "FTF" follows one inner-city street hood from his first time "bust" for drug dealing through one of the controversial "boot camp" style reform programs back into the streets where he is again faced with a choice between easy money or long unemployment lines. A journeyman film which runs a bit long with it's attempts to milk sympathy from the audience, "FTF" is a somewhat staged telling of a true story, a tour de force by a well cast Epps, and a seemingly serious attempt to give insights into the plight of the young inner-city black male with a criminal record.

A movie provides entertainment,FTF told a real story realistically. I missed the beginning credits so didn't know what it was about till I saw Epps and knew it couldn't be something ordinary.

First Time Felon doesn't rush along because its' story isn't one to be rushed, critics call it slow, I call it insightful.

The hood trying to give up his "hood" has a tough time because he's become a fencesitter in the eyes of all. He's not accepted by society for being honest about his conviction neither is he one of the boys because he's seen the end of that road and this is depicted harshly when Pookie is blown away right next to him, that could have been him and for a minute his own existence was in the balance.

Greg Yance's story is deeply moving in an "it could happen to you" kind of way and you get pulled in like one of the comments said, it holds you right through and I found myself rooting for Yance when he hit the streets again and again, his Mum's support was instrumental in keeping him going,I didn't find it mushy in the least.

Omar Epps is a multi talented actor who delivers every time. This is one of his finest performances till date.

A 7/10