Quando as Leis São Rompidas

I originally saw 'Felony' back in the 90's solely because Lance Henriksen was in it. I'll be honest and tell you I didn't retain much about it other than the finale taking place on a football field. Sitting down for it again with the knowledge of director David A. Prior just reinforces why it's so unmemorable.

This is the type of low grade action that used to litter the shelves of your local corner store or Blockbuster. The basic premise of a reality TV camera crew (think Cops) following a SWAT raid on a house to arrest criminals and seize drugs sounds alright. Then watch the execution. A blueprint on how to not shoot action. When things go really wrong and the cameraman and assistant escape with the evidence of who did it on tape things don't get any better.

A bunch of recognizable faces either chew the scenery *ahem David Warner* or have to recite awful dialog. Horrible car chase action where you can tell the vehicles are going 5 mp/h. Jeffrey Combs - no stranger to b-movies - is really out of his depth as our action hero. I'm still trying to forget that ridiculous last minute reveal.

Lance can't save this. None of the other faces can. Leo Rossi, Charles Napier, Joe Don Baker, Ashley Lawrence, David Warner. A real generic soundtrack. Absurd characters. Cardboard romance, injuries that mean little, predictable double crosses and a story that actively works to unravel itself, but not in a fun way. This is the directors wheelhouse.

If you are a fan of low-low-budget action flicks, with semi-famous and once-famous stars, then you might allow yourself to enjoy this movie more than it deserves. Only Joe Don Baker seems to have put any life into his performance at all. The best David Warner could come up with was having his character chew gum loudly. The action follows a crew of a "Cops"-type reality show involved in a huge nighttime shootout that leaves a dozen police officers dead, although the plots has more holes than they do. The two guys in the crew, one of whom is a pained-looking Jeffrey Combs, film the massacre unbeknownst to the killers even though the camera was about twenty feet from them with the spotlight shining merrily. The rest of the movie has Combs being pursued by the killers who just happen to be a CIA splinter group, two bumbling cops, and a charismatic inter-agency spook mediator. The ending of the movie, which I won't dare spoil, is so laughable and totally implausible that it completely invalidates the entire plot. No exaggeration.

I saw this film only because I really liked Combs in "Re-Animator" and "The Frighteners". "Felony", however is a low-budget, slow-moving and predictable film and Combs is its only saving grace, and even he can't make it work.

For die hard Combs/action fans only.

A 3 out of 10.

I can't believe that Henriksen did this film. I have never, ever, EVER seen a "film" that is such a total, utter and incredible waste of time, energy, celluloid and brain cells than this atrocious piece of tripe. The simple fact that I actually sat through this entire film makes me feel that maybe I need to re-evaluate the way I spend my time watching films. If you ever have the time to watch this movie, do yourself a favor and go do something productive, like counting how many cigarette burns your friends have accidentally put into the carpet in your house, because you will feel much more useful doing this than you will watching this total waste of space. I'm going to go wash my eyes out with rubbing alcohol now, as I have to cleanse myself of this god-awful "action film" with some of the worst acting and scenarios that I have EVER seen.

With several name actors (Lance Henrikson, David Warner, Joe Don Baker), why was Jeffery Combs given the lead? Henrikson would have been a perfect fit for the lead, as would Warner, Baker or even others in the movie such as Charles Napier. Combs was miscast in this, and did a poor job of it. Everything he did seemed fake or contrived.

The script is poor. Meaning that if Lance Henrikson (or another) had the lead role, he might have saved the film (removed it from my "waste of time" category), but it still would have been a bad movie. The screen play was completely lacking. The director should have recognized this and helped the movie along.