An Innocent Man (1989)

Tom Selleck (THREE MEN AND A BABY) turns in a riveting performance as Jimmie Rainwood, an average citizen whose life becomes a living nightmare when he's framed by a pair of crooked cops and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. With his life torn apart, Rainwood swears revenge, vowing to fight back and deliver justice to the dishonest cops who set him up -- no matter what the price! Ultimately, Rainwood risks everything to recapture his normal life, and prove once and for all that he is an innocent man!

An Inocent Man

My brother had been looking for this movie for a long time and wasn't able to find it. I found in on Amazon and ordered it and had it sent to him. He was thrilled. The movie was in excelent condition and was delivered to him in fast time. He was one happy person and I was a happy customer! It is an excelent movie. And the price was very reasonable! THANK YOU! October 13, 2008

stellar drama

okay,youve got tom selleck starring in a basic plotted movie about being framed by crooked cops & dealing with harsh prison life.this is a helluva flick mostly due to those dirty cops!making very good villans especially david rasche who to me steals the show!you really cant wait to see these guys go down!its well made & very underrated in my opinion.

also enjoyed the convicts he deals with in prison that make his life a living hell! his inmate buddy virgil(f murray abraham)has that killer line "aint life a motherf---er" that you cant forget! May 31, 2008

Mild-mannered John Q. Citizen gets backed into a corner

Innocent? Yes, aren't we all? But in AN INNOCENT MAN, Jimmie Rainwood (Tom Selleck) really is, albeit a presumably highly paid one as a senior mechanic on the aircraft maintenance line of American Airlines in Southern California. Married to Kate (Laila Robins) and living in a hillside house with a view of Los Angeles-San Pedro Harbor, Jimmie has the good life. That is, until he runs afoul of two corrupt drug squad detectives from the local constabulary, Parnell (David Rasche) and Scalise (Richard Young), who supplement their income partnering with a major narcotics supplier, stealing from competing dealers, and selling the goods to their patron. Mistakenly led to believe that a deal is going down at Rainwood's home, they bust in while Jimmie is home alone finishing up a shower. Parnell and Scalise shoot Rainwood thinking the hair dryer he's holding is a weapon. Realizing their mistake, they cover their tracks by planting drugs in the home and a gun in Jimmie's hand, with which he ostensibly took a shot at the officers. Ultimately, Rainwood angrily refuses to plead guilty to lesser charges to get a reduced sentence, and a jury trial results in six years in the state pen.

While incarcerated, Jimmie must thrust aside inhibitions and learn how to literally kill to survive. He does this under the tutelage of fellow con and self-admitted criminal, Virgil Cane (F. Murray Abraham), also put away by Parnell and Scalise, though they beat up Cane's girlfriend during the process of the arrest. Eventually, Rainwood is let out on parole after three years. Returning home, he and Kate continue to be oppressed by the two crooked cops, and Jimmie falls back on his hard-won survival skills to break himself and his wife free.

My Mom recommended AN INNOCENT MAN since, in her former capacity as a staff psychiatrist for the Nevada Department of Corrections, she worked out of the men's prison in Carson City, where the exterior shots of Jimmie's lock-up were shot. If you've ever been to Nevada's state capitol, you'll recognize the adjacent Sierra Nevada range in the film. (The interior shots were apparently filmed at a disused prison in Cincinnati, OH - no mountains there.)

Now, the corrupt cop Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) in the 2001 film Training Day was one bad dude. Here, the Parnell and Scalise characters, while dangerous, are played as obnoxious wise guys almost to the point of caricature; Rasche and Young rendered them positively annoying by overacting, which is probably why Washington is an "A List" performer while the latter two aren't and never will be. At the other end of the spectrum is Detective Fitzgerald (Badja Djola) of Internal Affairs, who sympathizes with Kate's and Jimmie's dilemma and knows Parnell and Scalise are dirty, but can't prove it. Djola's performance is about as animated as a wooden hitching post.

Kate Rainwood, played competently by Robins, is believable and sympathetic as Jimmie's loyal wife, but her character is essentially tangential. The best supporting performance is undoubtedly by Abraham as the wily, prison-savvy Cane, whose motive for helping Rainwood is mostly inscrutable until the film's end when the payback Virgil is now enabled to deliver is delicious in the audience's contemplation.

Tom Selleck reminds me of John Wayne. The Duke never really acted; any role he played was essentially John Wayne dressed in a different costume. Wayne was, in my opinion a superlative entertainer, but not a great actor. Selleck, I think, falls into this same category. The majority of his movies are class B flicks more suitable for television, but his on-screen characters are so consistently engaging and attractive - perhaps accurately reflecting Tom himself - that I'd rather watch any one of his efforts than a substandard outing by a Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. For Selleck's presence alone, I'm awarding AN INNOCENT MAN four stars.

There's one aspect of the film that continues to niggle at my mind. At the conclusion, Jimmie packs a pistol that evolves in the plot as the one placed in his unconscious hand by Parnell and Scalise during the original frame-up three years previous. How did Rainwood come into its possession? Wouldn't it have been confiscated as evidence, and then destroyed by the police after his conviction? January 18, 2008

lawbreaking teen males: see this movie...

If you're headed down the wrong path, this movie will turn you around. You'd rather be dead than end up in prison. Unlike the other reviewers, I didn't know what was coming next, except to hope that Tom would overcome such injustice. He transitioned from a happy-go-lucky guy who was framed to become a hardened ex-con well. I don't like strong language in a movie, but crooked cops and prison life seem to merit it in this movie. Suspenseful. Under-rated - where was the popularity for this movie? Tom's an exceptional actor, and if he's in a movie, i want to see it. October 13, 2007

Innocent fluff

I liked Selleck in Quigley Down Under, but here he is unconvincing and is weighed down by a predictable, one-dimensional plot. Anyone who doesn't know where this movie's going from the word go is an innocent man or woman. The opening scene, in which he's shown as kind, generous, principled, brilliant, is positively saccharine. This is thoroughly lightweight entertainment that is more like your typical infallible TV series hero than a serious, intelligent movie. September 18, 2007

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