Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

One of the most popular sayings in late 20th Century America defined conservative as “a liberal who got mugged”. Liberals tried to retort by their own definition of a liberal as “a conservative who got abused by police and justice system”. Knowing Hollywood’s political and ideological preferences, it isn’t hard to imagine why the producers, directors and writers preferred the films featuring the latter scenario, very much like An Innocent Man, 1989 crime drama directed by Peter Yates.

The protagonist, played by Tom Selleck is James “Jimmie” Rainwood, airline mechanic who is well-liked and respected at his job, has nice home in Long Beach, California, which he shares with loving nurse wife Kate (played by Laila Robbins), whom he helps finish college and plans to have children with. His idyllic life gets shattered when two corrupt narcotics detectives – Mike Parnell (played by David Rasche) and Danny Scalise (played by Robert Young) – mishear information about address of the upcoming drug deal and raid Jimmie’s home instead. During the raid Parnell mistakes Jimmie’s hairdryer for a gun and shoots him; later, in order to cover for their mistake, Parnell and Scalise plant drugs and gun. Jimmie recovers from his wounds, but he is charged for drug possession and assault. Unwilling to compromise on his innocence by accepting plea deal and with his word against planted evidence, he gets sentenced to six years in maximum security prison. Jimmie is utterly unprepared for such brutal place, run by racially segregated gangs and maintained by violence. Virgil Kane (played by F. Murray Abracham), shrewd and experienced prisoner who would ultimately become his friend and mentor, tells him that he must forget about rules of the outside world and that his only way to survive prison is to do some things he couldn’t have imagined as a free man.

Script was written by Larry Brothers, playwright who had spent some of his youthful years behind bars and whose experiences inspired his portrayal of prison life. The script also represented a reaction against Hollywood’s over-enthusiastic embrace of police and tough “law and order” policies during late 1980s War on Drugs and display another side of medal through an innocent man who suffers because the system is stacked against him. Brothers’ script, on the other hand, used a lot of prison film cliches, but also employed an interesting motive by showing how character who starts as model citizen, loving husband and person who even hesitates to use profanities transforms behind bars into something quite different. That was probably intriguing challenge for Tom Selleck, an actor best known for playing squeaky clean characters in television; he did reasonably good job. Another interesting detail was casting of David Rasche, best known for playing ultra-violent macho police detective in satirical comedy series Sledge Hammer!; Rasche here plays another police detective, only utterly corrupt, smug and sadistic in his treatment of protagonist.

Those interesting casting choices, on the other hand, can’t overcome inept direction, which is something quite surprising for Peter Yates, veteran who has handled many genre classics in the past, like Bullitt. The scenes look badly staged and almost unnoticeable music score by Howard Shore gives impression of glorified television film (with only some graphic violence and foul language suggesting theatrical feature). Some of the characters seem completely unnecessary, like Internal Affairs detective played by Badja Djola. The final part of the film is prolonged and feature main antagonists act incredibly foolish only for the protagonist to get his revenge. The cast, which features some good character actors like M. C. Gainley as Virgil Kane’s lieutenant, like Selleck, does good job, while F. Murray Abracham shows that he can do good things with cliched character and poor dialogues. Although mostly watchable, at least for audience with patience and low expectations, An Innocent Man could be recommended only to the most enthusiastic fans of Tom Selleck.

RATING: 4/10 (+)