Henry Fonda as Balestrero is superb. The supporting cast are all good too, with Vera Miles as his flaky wife and Anthony Quayle as the attorney who defends him, but it's Fonda's film. His character is one we don't see much of in the cinema — an honest, unpretentious, hard working man. He's good to his wife and kids, doesn't drink and treats people with respect. Throughout his strange and terrifying ordeal — things happen that wouldn't look out of place in a Kafka novel — he maintains a quiet, stoic, dignity and we can't help but feel like we're there with him, privileged to be in his company.
The film is immaculately put together and has an almost documentary quality to it with many of the scenes playing out in real time to emphasise the agony that the wronged man is going through. The scenes of his arrest and questioning in particular are painfully slow and deliberate but utterly enthralling nonetheless. Yet it's still unquestionably a Hitchcock film, with many of his hallmark themes and styles and this leads to some interesting, though possibly unintended, tensions. We've all seen North by Northwest, Psycho and Rear Window and these have trained us with an almost Pavlovian instinct for the twists and surprises that we might expect. Consequently we wonder if Fonda is actually guilty, or if the police are setting him up, or if his wife's secret lover is trying to get him out of the picture. Or, if none of those, it must surely be something to do with the mother — it's usually the mother isn't it? And while we're second-guessing the master, he goes and springs the biggest surprise of them all because we suddenly remember that the whole crazy story is actually true.
If I'm ever sitting in a bar having a few drinks and a pretty girl comes up to me and claims that Vertigo is Hitchcock's greatest film I would, if I'm feeling in a contrary mood and up for some banter, argue that she's mistaken and that actually The Wrong Man is. It can match any of his other films for thrills and intrigue, it has one of the best performances by a Hitchcock leading man and, most importantly, it's completely real. There are no implausible plot turns, no over-scripted one-liners, no impossibly beautiful blondes who happen to cross the hero's path — just an extraordinary true story meticulously told. Of course, the next morning I'd admit over breakfast that I was talking a load of rubbish — it's in the top three at best. But that's still pretty good.
