Délit d'innocence

I think this was a good film about being framed and getting revenge. Tom Selleck is great in his role as the title character. Two crooked cops make a mistake (in more ways than one) when they go to the wrong address expecting to find a drug dealer, break into his house, mistake a hair dryer he is carrying for a gun, and shoot him. They then realize that they are at the wrong house and try to amend their mistake by framing Selleck as a drug dealer. Everything goes their way, and Selleck winds up in prison. Three years later, he is paroled and seeks revenge. During those three years, he is faced with the harsh realities of prison life and is beaten up more than once. F. Murray Abraham is there for him, fortunately, and helps him survive. (Abraham plays another inmate.) I liked this film even though it did follow a formula and was a typical revenge type movie. It was a great role for Selleck, who was perfect in his part.

** 1/2 out of ****

This movie is a great example of a character thrust into an awful situation - a situation where you question, "What would I do in his shoes?" For that reason, it is very tense and suspenseful throughout as Tom Selleck's character tries to navigate prison life. I really felt for his character - his acting was great. Sure, there are some moments of cheesy lines and overdone composing and a bit of over-acting by the various villains, but for the most part, this is one of the better character thrillers I've seen in awhile. Selleck is great, as if the man who befriends him inside the prison. Can't find anything new to watch? I recommend checking out this little gem from 1989!

I was quite happy to see F Burry Abraham in this, he is a rare gem and can steal the show oft, like in his role in Scarface. However, Sellick was of course the main feature and did well to portray a guy being wronged and thrown into the prison system. Really good movie, pretty enjoyable, fairly realistic. 7/10

I think An Innocent Man proved that whenever he decided to end his Magnum PI series, Tom Selleck was going to have no trouble in getting good parts. And not those that were a variation on his Thomas Magnum persona.

This is one really powerful film about An Innocent Man getting caught in the criminal justice machinery because of a pair of dirty cops, David Rasche and Richard Young. These two who are decorated heroes in the Long Beach PD for all the arrests they rack up are actually just putting out of business all the independents in the narcotics trade for the local organized crime boss and making a nice side living in the process.

They get an address wrong from an informant and they invade Selleck's home, shoot and wound Selleck, and then plant evidence to make Selleck out as a dealer. He gets convicted and sentenced to six years hard time and I do mean hard which it is for anyone who's not a professional in the criminal trade.

Fortunately he gets himself a mentor in old time con F. Murray Abraham who also has a score to settle with those two cops. Abraham teaches him all the new rules for survival in the joint, housed with men who are by nature incorrigible and don't play by civilized rules. Selleck does things that were against his old nature.

When he does get paroled from inside the joint Abraham quarterbacks a revenge scheme that Selleck participates in.

Besides those mentioned I should also single out Laila Robins who plays Selleck's wife who stands by him and Bruce Young who plays a violent convict that Selleck has to deal with in the joint.

An Innocent Man is one of the best made for television films done and should have gotten big screen theatrical release.

James Rainwood (Tom Selleck) is a real stand up guy, with a loving wife and in a dream job with a company that just couldn't cope without him. His life is just dandy, That is until two corrupt cops make a mistake and burst into his home believing it to be host to a drug deal. Thinking his hairdryer is a gun, one of the cops shoots Rainwood and it's then that the cops realise they have made a monumental error. So planting drugs around the home they set Rainwood up as a dealer who shot at the cops. Believing justice & honesty will see him OK, Rainwood refuses to cop a plea, and is promptly sentenced to a hell hole prison for six years. Here the affable Rainwood needs to wise up quickly or face a brutal and torrid time in the big house.

Earlier in 1989 we had seen the release of Sly Stallone vehicle Lock Up, a film, that for all its many faults, was a dream come true to the action movie fan who also has a bent for any piece involving incarceration. So up steps Tom Selleck, who after recently showing himself to be a more than effective light entertainer in films such as Three Men and a Baby and Her Alibi, is looking to break out into other, more rounded genres (he also made the quite excellent Quigley Down Under in 1989). For the most part it's a good fit for Selleck and the casting director. The role of Jimmie Rainwood calls for someone charming, elegant and reeking of pure homeliness. That's Selleck without doubt. But the problems for many observers have been, and will be for first time viewers, the transformation of homely Tom into cocksure daddio prison geezer. Thrust into a world of violence and male rape, Rainwood simply must shape up or face a few years of brutality and a stripping of his soul. We know this, and once he starts to be guided by Virgil Cane (F. Murray Abraham adding a touch of class to a stereotypical role), the film for the rest of the prison sections is sign posted for us. And it's hard to swallow, even for someone like me who is a fan of the film!

As for the other elements in the film, the various sub-plots hold few surprises. Rainwood's wife (Laila Robins) is loving and crusading for her man's release, but writer Larry Brothers has her very much by the numbers. As he does for Badja Djola's Internal Affairs investigator, John Fitzgerald. The latter of which is a real shame as Djola holds his scenes very well and is aching to put more meat into the character. Then there is of course our dirty cops played by Richard Young & David Rasche. Young's Danny Scaliese is the calm thinking one, Rasche's Mike Parnell is the aggressive and borderline psychotic one. It's hard to tell if Rasche is playing it for ham or really attempting to layer the madness lurking within? Either way, it's very entertaining, if ultimately miles away from the brilliance that was his Sledge Hammer! TV series. These cops are of course in desperate need of a fall, the question is if the makers here are merely reverting to formula or do they have some tricks up their sleeves? Well it's directed by Peter Yates and the writer is hardly an inspired scribe, so you do the maths. And lets face it, Selleck is no Stallone - a better actor for sure, but when it comes to shanking and shooting who you gonna call? Rambo or Magnum?

I do like the film a lot, but I love the genre it belongs to anyway. And I literally will watch Abraham in anything. So take my 7/10 rating purely with a pinch of salt and call it a 6/10 time filler if you not be singing of the same page as myself.