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Review: An Innocent Man (1989)
Despite becoming a star on “Magnum P.I.,” Tom Selleck is propably still smarting over losing a chance for the silver screen stardom he nearly got. Many might recall that Selleck was set to star as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark before a certain pilot was picked up to be a weekly series for eight seasons on CBS. Meanwhile Harrison Ford went from intergalactic mercenary to superstar in Steven Spielberg’s film and its sequels.
While a reliable and likable enough of a presence on the small screen, Selleck has not exactly fared well in his cinematic forays with the exception of Three Men and a Baby (1987). Perhaps this is why his latest endeavor resembles a tv movie-of-the-week but one with better production values and a highly-regarded director in Peter Yates (\ best-known effort for 1968s Bullitt and 1978s Breaking Away). Selleck is up against a pair of crooked cops—not exactly an original premise for film or tv—but is An Innocent Man.
Jimmy Rainwood (Selleck) is a hardworking aircraft mechanic. He lives a sedate life with a pretty wife (Laila Robbins of Planes, Trains and Automobiles) in a cozy middle-class California town. A mistake will make short work of that soon enough. A pair of crooked cops, (David Rasche and Richard Young) believing his home home is the residence of a drug dealer, enter the Rainwood abode. They open fire on Jimmy who is armed, but with a hair dryer. Realizing they have gotten the wrong address the lawless lawmen doctor the house with planted drugs.
The wife is relieved to find that Jimmy is going to pull through bit horrified to find that he is facing a trial on trumped-up drug charges. Jimmy goes off to the big hose for a time and gets some survival lessons from a lifer named Virgil (Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham). Despite some hardships involving life or death, Jimmy’s period of imprisonment is more like high school bullying than the harrowing prison life witnessed in such tales as Escape from Alcatraz and Midnight Express or recently The Hanoi Hilton. Jimmy manages to endure his period of incarceration and longs to see his wife. Upon his release, he gets an unexpected (and unwelcome) visit from the very cops who put him away.
It turns out there are others who are not keen on the diabolical duo. This probably won’t be surprising for those who have seen enough network, cable, and theatrical films. They might even have an idea how the film ends.
Touchstone probably decided to give Selleck a chance to have a star vehicle given the success of Three Men and a Baby.That film’s director, Leonard Nimoy, followed it up with the disquieting drama The Good Mother before returning to duty aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. No doubt that on the small screen it will make for better watching than on the big one. Selleck can act but clearly hasn’t been given more material enabling him to do so or audiences lining up at the box office. Despite always putting on a game face, he hasn’t gotten a chance to really hit it out of the park on a regular basis.
Robert Baum is Currently a Bryn Mawr, PA-based film afficanado and pop culture junkie.
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