An Innocent Man (1989)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Ordinary Joe Tom Selleck is in the right house at the wrong time when two scummy cops invade his home to arrest him for drugs; Selleck is clean, the cops made a mistake, so they rectify their gaffe by planting the goods on him. Next stop: the courtroom (where an ages-old marijuana infraction rears its ugly head), and eventually the Big House. Once Selleck is behind bars, plotting to clear his good name, the picture falls into that timeworn, melodramatic vat of jailhouse clichés. It's a trap for the character as well as the audience. Peter Yates directed, hoping to spare us none of the horrors and humiliations of life in the jug. It's played for the sensational...and yet some viewers actually get caught up in it. Perhaps they're too young to know it has all been done before. *1/2 from ****

Pure revenge film all the way is this drama from the pen of Larry Brothers which tried to be a serious movie about the prevailing of justice when "An Innocent Man" (Tom Selleck) is framed by a pair of corrupt narcotics detectives.Peter Yates never stood a chance of making this a film with a message due to its obvious direction, conclusion and its total lack of life's ever present ambiguities. Tom Selleck's character is just too pure and righteous, and his loving wife is far too good for words, while the bad guys are just so, so bad it's annoying. F. Murray Abraham is probably the only slightly believable, and enjoyable, character, as he doesn't mind helping out a friend, yet we know he has a dark past. An agreeable showing from the one time Academy Award winner.This is the only highlight though in what is essentially a two dimensional movie lacking completely in originality. Howard Shore's surprisingly below par score is also a let down. Recommended just for audiences who either love Tom Selleck or love seeing the nasties get their comeuppance.Thursday, August 25, 1994 - T.V.

This movie looks like a TV-movie. But that's okay, because I was watching it on a TV set.Tom Selleck plays Jimmie Rainwood, and aircraft engineer living in the seaside 'burbs with his wife, Kate (Laila Robins), who suffers the old 'wrong place at the wrong time' thing when two highly decorated (and highly corrupt) cops, acting on a tip, hit his house, which is on Oak Lane, mistaking it for Oak WAY, where the real drug deal is going down.Jimmie's just taken a shower while he contemplates the salad Kate left for him in the refrigerator (she's working late) when the two narcs burst in. Mistaking Jimmie's hairdryer for a gun, coke-addled detective Mike Parnell (David Rasche) shoots Jimmie.Not wanting to tarnish their "distinguished" careers, the two cops frame Jimmie and the legal system fails him and he winds up sentenced to 6 years.While Jimmie learns how to survive in the big house from lifer Virgil (F Murray Abraham), his wife writes letters, harrasses people etc to try and get him out, including clever manipulation of Internal Affairs Detective Fitzgerald (Badja Djola), and the corrupt narcs do their best to keep Jimmie and Kate silent about their collossal screw-up.A pretty formulaic prison-drama revenge-story, An Innocent Man has strength in it's performances and in it's realistic depiction of prison-life, particularly the tendency for some more experienced inmates to take pity on the "new guy" and give him some pointers so he stands at least some chance of surviving beyond his first week. And Laila Robins is really good as Rainwood's wife, remaining steadfast in her belief in Jimmie's innocence. And it steers clear of most of the jail-movie-clichés we are used to, like the "oh my god it's a shower scene...don't drop the soap", or the sadistic warden character.This was never meant to be a dialogue-driven character study, nor a psychological examination of what incarceration does to the human soul. It's a revenge flick, a Tom Selleck action movie (you gotta love that he simply adds some 'handlebars' to that ridiculous moustache for his tough-guy jail-look) and a bite of after-dinner entertainment that delivers. Todd Graff deserves a mention as the hapless Robby, a repeat offender who offers Jimmie some initial tips when they first arrive, though he gets doused in petrol and set alight about 10 minutes in...he's really good though, playing the loser who knows what every prison on the eastern seaboard looks like.F Murray Abraham is worth the price of admission alone. He has some great lines. Oh, wait...yeah and that flying leap Tom Selleck does out of nowhere to take down Det Parnell...classicly weird and entertaining. All in all, worth a look.

I never cared for Magnum P.I. and I had no hand in the rental of this film when my friend brought it home from the video store for all of us to watch, so I didn't know what to expect. ***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***All-in-all not a bad 'payback' film, although nowhere near the league of 'The Shawshank Redemption'. Basically, it's the familiar story of a man who's wrongly accused of dealing drugs after a couple of crooked cops set him up when a drug bust goes awry. Of course, Selleck comes out the better man, toughened by prison life and seeks his revenge on the 'bad' cops. Not a bad story.... 6/10