Themes: Miscarriage of Justice, Prison Life, Police Corruption
Main Cast: Tom Selleck, F. Murray Abraham, Laila Robins, David Rasche, Richard Young
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 113 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In Peter Yates' crime drama An Innocent Man, Tom Selleck plays Jimmie Rainwood, a stock figure airline maintenance supervisor with a perfect family. Then, one day, Jimmie decides to take a shower. While scrubbing himself clean, two crooked cops are getting themselves dirtier. Mike Parnell (David Rasche) and Danny Scalise (Richard Young) are the kind of bad cops who bust the drug dealers, steal their supply, and sell it back to the local drug lords. On this day, unfortunately for Jimmie, they get the wrong address and bash down his door. When Jimmie comes out of the bathroom wielding his hair dryer, Parnell and Scalise think it is a gun and shoot him. Realizing their mistake, they cover themselves and frame him as a drug dealer. Jimmie refuses to take a plea and he is sentenced to six years in the slammer. In the brutal prison environment, he is taken aside by long-timer Virgil Kane (F. Murray Abraham), who gives him a bleak collection of options to chose from in order to survive prison. After seeing a prison gang rape, Jimmie chooses the kill-or-be-killed selection and stabs to death the nasty black convict who has been bothering him. After three years, Jimmie is released on parole, and he tries to pick up his life again. But Parnell and Scalise return to threaten Jimmie and his family. Realizing that his prison lessons must be carried over into civilian life, he sets up a situation in which the bad cops' drug dealings are revealed, and Jimmie prepares for a final reckoning between the cops and himself. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
It's hard to know if Tom Selleck can portray anything other than stalwart, forthright heroes because his rugged good looks have typecast him in variations on the square-shouldered protagonist. His role here is no exception. His character is such a one-note fellow, in fact, that it's hard to work up the emotional engagement the film clearly wants to convey. Surprisingly, what's left instead is a compelling and interesting drama. The film is a tightly structured potboiler that quickly recovers its footing after some wobbly exposition to become an absorbing if shockingly violent peek under the lid of the racism, gang warfare, and daily humiliations of prison life. F. Murray Abraham turns in one of his best pre-ham performances as a wily con who becomes the lead's cunning mentor, acting as a tour guide of the hellish institution for both Selleck's naïve character and the viewer. If not as emotionally captivating as it should be, director Peter Yates' film is a tough, stimulating entry in the prison genre. Compared to such superior later fare as television's gritty, no-holds-barred Oz, An Innocent Man (1989) pales due to its clichés, simplicity, and predictability, but judged under its own merit, the film is engaging. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Badja Djola - John Fitzgerald; Todd Graff - Robby; Derek Anunciation - Lester; Tobin Bell - Zeke; Brian Brophy - Nate Blitman; Dennis Burkley - Butcher; J. Kenneth Campbell - Lt. Freebery; Dave Florek - Court Clerk; Holly Fulger - Yvonne; M.C. Gainey - Malcolm; Terry Golden - Felix; Philip Baker Hall - Judge Lavet; Clint Howard - Fellow prisoner; J.J. Johnston - Joseph Donatelli; Thomas B. Kackert - Dove; Charlie Landry - Stevie; Ernie Lively - Donatelli's Dealer; Bob Maroff - Venucci; Gary Matanky - Mechanic at Hangar; Robert Nichols - Courthouse Guard; Jack Orend - Officer at Bust; Jim Ortlieb - Convict at Robby's Death; Ben Slack - Woznick; Peter van Norden - Peter Feldman; Bruce A. Young - Jingles; Larry Brothers - Basketball Con; Dean Hill - Mike; Alanniss Allddero - Convict Torturer; Maggie Baird - Stacy; Ralph O. Benton - Man on Tuna Boat; David Rhodes Brown - Convict; Lt. Mike Budge - Warden; Ron Collins - Fritz; Scott Jaeck - Albert; David Meligan - Correctional Officer; Vito Peterson - Handjob; Ben Rawnsley - Cop at Jimmie's; Jim Staskel - Man on Tuna Boat; Gary Velasco - Courthouse Guard; Brian J. Williams - Man on Tuna Boat; Jeffrey Earl Young - Guard; Howard Feuer; James T. Morris - Junior
Credit
Frank Richwood - Art Director, Larry Brothers - Associate Producer, Joel Salce - Consultant/advisor, Robert W. Cort - Co-producer, Ted Field - Co-producer, Neil Machlis - Co-producer, Rita Ryack - Costume Designer, Peter Yates - Director, Stephen A. Rotter - Editor, William Scharf - Editor, Howard Shore - Composer (Music Score), Lon Bentley - Makeup, James McCoy - Makeup, Stuart Wurtzel - Production Designer, William A. Fraker - Cinematographer, Scott Kroopf - Producer, Sig Tingloff - Set Designer, William H. Schirmer - Special Effects, John Moio - Stunts, Larry Brothers - Screenwriter, Michael Burton - Screenwriter, Al Laverde - Key Grip
An Innocent Man, is a 1989crime / thriller film starring Tom Selleck. The film follows Jimmie Rainwood, an airlinemechanic sent to prison when framed by crooked police officers.
Plot
Jimmie Rainwood (Selleck) is a model citizen. He's happily married to a beautiful woman, has a modest home in Long Beach, California, works as a mechanic for American Airlines, drives a classic Pontiac Trans Am, pays his bills, and enjoys his ordinary life.
Detectives Mike Parnell (David Rasche) and Danny Scaliese (Richard Young) are two corrupt cops who specialise in making drug busts. Rather than completing the busts properly and handing over all the drugs as evidence, they always steal a portion for their own use or for resale to other dealers.
After taking a cocaine hit and being unable to concentrate properly, Parnell takes down the address incorrectly for his next drug bust. Instead, they break into Jimmie Rainwood's home, expecting to find drugs. When Rainwood walks out of the bathroom with a handheld hair dryer in hand, Parnell shoots him, thinking it's a weapon. In order to cover up their mistake, they frame Rainwood by planting drugs throughout his house and putting a firearm in his hand. With false evidence stacked up against him (and a previous marijuana charge during his college years) and his only defense being his word against two cops, he receives a 6 year prisonsentence.
Rainwood is less than well versed to the horrors of prison life, something demonstrated well when he first witnesses a man get stabbed with a screwdriver and set on fire. Not long after his arrival, a vicious gay prisoner named Jingles and his gang take an interest in Rainwood. After getting savagely beaten by Jingles and his gang and being threatened with homosexual advances, Rainwood comes to realize that all the rumblings about having to "take care of his problem" is his only recourse.
With the help of a benevolent and influential convict named Virgil Cane (F. Murray Abraham), a plexiglasshank is fashioned for Rainwood. He stabs Jingles to death, and ends up spending three months in a windowless, subterranean solitary confinement, though the guards are unable to prove Rainwood did the job.
Upon his release back to general lockup, Rainwood is received as a minor hero. Upon getting paroled after three years, he sets out to seek revenge on the detectives who framed him. Malcolm (M.C. Gainey), another ex-con Rainwood befriended on the inside, assists Rainwood in his cause, along with Rainwood's wife Kate (Laila Robins), who learns of Scalise and Parnell's involvement in the cover-up when they begin to harass her. An Internal Affairs detective, John Fitzgerald, becomes involved after Kate tells him about a racist remark Parnell made (falsely) about Fitzgerald and his department. Parnell makes the mistake of telling off Fitzgerald after being confronted about the Rainwood case, making Kate's lie seem more truthful and Fitzgerald now more determined than ever to find the truth.
The harassment of the Rainwoods escalates as they get closer to the truth. The movie's climax is a showdown and shootout that leaves Scalise dead after crashing his car and Parnell about to die at the hands of Rainwood by Parnell's own switchblade. As Rainwood is about to kill Parnell, Kate speaks up. Rainwood throws Parnell to the ground, leaving him to his soon-to-be-former colleagues.
The movie ends with Parnell in the general prison population (a creative liberty, as convicted cops are generally kept in protective custody), and spotted from a distance by Virgil, who openly addresses him as "Officer", drawing the attention of the other inmates.
Parnell looks up to the balcony where Virgil is standing, his face frozen in a mask of fear. "Ain't life a motherfucker?" Virgil asks, repeating a line he stated when he and Rainwood said their goodbyes earlier.
The movie ends with the final scene showing the epilogue of Jimmie Rainwood's life, working again as a mechanic for American Airlines, finally getting his life back.
