An Innocent Man

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Peter Yates directs. William A. Fraker behind the camera. Howard Shore scores. Stephen A. Rotter cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 137 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
• 2Directed by Peter Yates, shot by William A. Fraker. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 3Original score by Howard Shore. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 4Editor Stephen A. Rotter shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 5Tom Selleck and F. Murray Abraham and Laila Robins carry the top of the cast.
• 6Marketing tagline: "Falsely accused. Unjustly convicted. Determined to survive on the inside. Demanding justice once he's on the outside.".
• 7IMDB entry: tt0097579 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

The technical file

Cinematography

William A. Fraker

Original score

Howard Shore

Editing

Stephen A. Rotter

Production design

Stuart Wurtzel

Costume design

Rita Ryack

Makeup / hair

Carol A. O'Connell

Sound

Tom Fleischman

Stunt coordinator

John Moio

Runtime

113 min · 1h 53m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Box office

$20,047,604

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

R

IMDB

An Innocent Man (1989) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

44% 🥫 Rotten

Metacritic

39/100

IMDB rating

6.5/10 · 7,801 votes

MPAA

R

Also by

Peter Yates

• 
  Koroshi

  1968 · ★ 8.0
• 
  The Saint

  1962 · ★ 7.4
• 
  Danger Man

  1960 · ★ 7.3
• 
  The Friends of Eddie Coyle

  1973 · ★ 7.2
• 
  Breaking Away

  1979 · ★ 7.2
• 
  Bullitt

  1968 · ★ 7.2

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

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Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  An Innocent Man (1989) ORIGINAL TRAILER

  Trailer

Community reviews

What people are saying

• John Chard2016-05-23
  ★ 7/10

  That's Virgil Cane man, Lone Ranger ain't got nothing on him. 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.

  Read full review ↓
• kevin20192025-07-11
  ★ 8/10

  "An Innocent Man" draws on every person's secret fear: what would you do if there was a gross miscarriage of justice and you suddenly find yourself being imprisoned? This film does a competent and realistic job of essaying an innocent man's life behind bars and you could say it makes use of the expected cliche of Jimmie Rainwood's greatest challenge being his day-to-day struggle to survive at the remorseless hands of the other more habitual inmates, except this isn't a cliche at all. It is a chilling fact of prison life all over the world. This is a very interesting film which raises a number of harrowing dilemmas in the story and resolves them in a well engineered, realistic and, for the most part, extremely satisfying way.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  Touchstone Pictures

  US

• 

  Interscope Communications

  US

• SI

  Silver Screen Partners IV

  US

Key crew

• Executive ProducerScott Kroopf
• Co-ProducerNeil Machlis
• CastingHoward Feuer
• StuntsTom Lupo
• Associate ProducerLarry Brothers
• Unit Production ManagerNeil Machlis
• StuntsGeorge P. Wilbur
• StuntsDavid Efron
• StuntsSteven Lambert
• Second Assistant DirectorKelly Wimberly
• Set DesignerSig Tingloff
• First Assistant DirectorPaul Deason
• Stunt CoordinatorJohn Moio
• StuntsMike Johnson
• StuntsKerrie Cullen
• Second Second Assistant DirectorJeff Okabayashi
• LeadmanMichael Schmidt
• Assistant Sound EditorMarissa Littlefield
• Foley ArtistElisha Birnbaum
• Unit PublicistEllen Pasternack
• Color TimerBob Noland
• Music EditorSuzana Perić
• Location ManagerRobbie Goldstein
• GafferGerald Boatright

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• drug crime
• mistaken identity
• police corruption
• wrongful arrest
• crime investigation
• innocent in jail
• innocent suspect

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical1989-10-06R

Also known as

International titles

• InnocentCA
• Délit d'innocenceFR
• Un hombre inocenteES
• Von Bullen aufs Kreuz gelegtDE
• A Revanche FinalBR