An Innocent Man (1989, USA)
This is the worst sort of prison movie; clichéd and predictable, with dialogue that would make even Magnum PI blanch.
Tom Selleck plays a too-good-to-be-true airline mechanic, Jimmie Rainwood, whose life is turned upside-down when two crooked, coked-up cops muck up the address of a drug deal, and burst in on his house. He comes out of the bathroom with hair dryer in hand; they shoot him, and to cover up their mistake they plant a gun and drugs on him and concoct a story that he fired a shot at them. He immediately gets bail on release from hospital, as no doubt most people who are alleged to have attempted to murder Police do, but is unable to prove his innocence. He gets six years. Inside, he immediately gets stood over by some African American dudes and has to decide whether he enlists the help of the Aryans (after which he would be beholden to them), or gets raped by his tormentors, or kills their main man. He chooses the latter and is soon struttin’ around the yard and high-fivin’ black prisoners on the basketball court.
He gets out in three, but the bad cops pay a friendly visit to his house just to warn him not to go making trouble for them. Worse, they call his wife an extremely naughty word. It’s only then that he realises that just like in prison, he won’t be left alone and his life will never return to normal until he does something about it. He sets up the crooked cops, fights them almost single-handedly when the sting goes a bit awry… but of course gets his revenge in the end. Fortunately, we don’t have to see him deal with either the death of his innocent mate whom he dragged into his private war and who gets killed in the midst of it all, or the fact that he murdered someone in prison… we just assume he goes back to being a vindicated, worry-free, loving husband and airline mechanic.
Oh, and the one surviving crooked cop (his partner also having been killed), who framed or ripped off all these blokes who are now in jail, is last seen smack-bang in the middle of them all in the very same jail. Yeah, sure.
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 8:55 pm. Updated on August 27th, 2009 at 10:19 pm.
One Response to “An Innocent Man (1989, USA)”
I have seen this Movie.From start to finish.Talk about injustice.This modest citizen is shot,and framed by two crooked cops,sent to prison,has to endure the harsness,is forced to kill one of his tormentors,is sent to solitare for 90 days,and when released from prison has to endure the visit from these scumbag cops again?The only justice that comes in this Movie is the bad-cops getting caught(one is killed,and the other sent to prison).Injustice,because the highers up in the justice system seem to be working together.Except,however for one.That person is an honest Internal Affairs Investigator.He helps Jimmie Rainwood get Justice.
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