Synopsis
Jimmie Rainwood was minding his own business when two corrupt police officers (getting an address wrong) burst into his house, expecting to find a major drug dealer. Rainwood is shot, and the officers frame him as a drug dealer. Rainwood is convicted of drug dealing, based on the perjured evidence of a police informant. Thrown into a seedy jail, fighting to prove his innocence is diffucult when he has to deal with the realities of prison life, where everyone claims they were framed.
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Cast
- Tom SelleckJimmie Rainwood
- F. Murray AbrahamVirgil Cane
- Laila RobinsKate Rainwood
- David RascheDetective Mike Parnell LBPD
- Todd GraffRobby
- M.C. GaineyMalcolm
- Peter Van NordenPeter Feldman
- Richard YoungDanny Scalise
- Badja DjolaJohn Fitzgerald
- Bruce A. YoungJingles
Recommendations
- 75
Washington Post
You'll cheer, you'll laugh, you'll bite your nails and feel your heart pounding right up there under your crewcut. - 63
Washington Post
An Innocent Man isn't an inspired piece of filmmaking, but it is tightly focused and efficient, and on its own modest terms it is effective. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
The plot is almost as old as Hollywood itself, yet the film's ironic, cynical tone gives the material a new spin under the direction of veteran Peter Yates. The script is savvy about the power structures both inside and outside the prison gates, and the fine cast makes the most of the well-crafted dialog and sharply drawn characters. - 50
Chicago Tribune
This 1989 movie looks much of the time like an old idea that's been too enthusiastically colorized. The prison sequences work best, and they seem almost like a completely separate film. - 40
Empire
Outdated and predictable revenge saga. - 38
Chicago Sun-Times
An Innocent Man has all the elements to put us through an emotional wringer, but the movie never works up any enthusiasm for them. It's the most relaxed crime movie of the year. - 30
The New York Times
More than enough sadism to go around. But the net effect is less excitement than overkill. The screenplay, by Larry Brothers, has a tendency to forget old plot elements as it picks up new ones. - 30
Los Angeles Times
This cautionary thriller about an unjustly imprisoned airline mechanic has a chance to be a canny blend of gutsy melodrama and J'Accuse against the prison system. But, by the end, it has gone as slick and corrupt as the crafty old con (F. Murray Abraham) who advises Tom Selleck's framed Jimmie Rainwood on jail survival. On a fundamental moral level, An Innocent Man is guilty as hell.
