Was his sentence to 7 to 10 years for a self-defense killing believable

IIRC, the knife disappeared when one of the scumbag's buddies took it, so that takes a deadly weapon and self defense off the table. Without any weapon, we have a trained soldier kill a good old boy for nothing more than an insult.

Sure, I agree the sentence was over the top, but a person did in fact die. If I was the DA maybe I wouldn't have pursued it, but the plot needs Poe in prison for the movie to take place. It's not easy writing a scenario where Poe would be convicted of murder and still be a guy we root for.

The guy's friends took the knife before the bartender came to the scene. It might be over the sentence but maybe it was how well known the guy was in town. It seemed in him going after the wife as a waitress he was a regular at the bar and lived in town all his life.

It's a ridiculous legal outcome, even worse is having him serving time in Federal prison for it. Homicide is a state crime and he wasn't tried by a courts martial, so why did he go to Federal prison?

Even without that weird twist, the conviction as a whole would have been ridiculous. There were dozens of witnesses who saw the yokels in the bar approach and harass Poe and his wife, further he was attacked by a group of men in the parking lot. An accidental death resulting from what amounts to a self defense fist fight @ 3:1 odds would never result in criminal charges. The DA would look at all 4 men and realize the other 3 were dirt bags, probably with records, and Poe was a well regarded military man. He'd not even charge Poe and some deft questioning by the police would probably get those 3 squealing on each other and doing time for felony assault on a plea bargain against possible attempted murder and rape charges.

It's obviously just in there to elevate the Poe character's moral status and make the plot work.

Who says a 90's action film needs to be believable? It's a plot device to get the movie rolling and nothing more than that. Also, it's just a movie.... it's not real life. This movie is pure fantasy!

The sentencing is absurd but bear in mind, the movie is meant as a live action cartoon.

I agree Cage’s accent in this was pretty bad. As for the sentence keep in mind the knife wasn’t found at the scene and he got some really shitty advice from his lawyer. Also his lawyer told him to plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit, I have a feeling the lawyer could have been disbarred for that.