El hombre equivocado

In Mexico Alex Walker has his wallet stolen by smuggler Felix Crawley. When he finds his house and goes in to get his money back he finds Felix shot and himself accused of murder. He runs and gets help from Missy and Phillip Mills, however his relationship with Missy begins to affect how cleanly he can get away.

False advertising! I watched this with the understanding that it was a thriller of some sort. However I'm sad to say that it isn't anything of the sort. The film opens OK and sets us up to have Alex hunt down the killer before the police catch him for the murder. Instead what happens is that he falls in with Missy and Phillip. He screws Missy a lot, Phillip fights and then is calm and over and over again ad nauseam. This continues till the end when the `shock' noir ending turned out to be what I had assumed from the first 10 minutes.

The film has no direction. The love triangle takes the place of the murder – except the occasional scene of the two Mexican police officers chasing Alex. Because it just drifts aimlessly it is very, very dull. I really had to force myself not to just turn it off and do something else instead simply because it is so very dull and boring.

Lithgow is OK but he lacks subtlety – I suspect he hammed it up because he didn't know any better than me what his character was all about. Arquette is annoying – all she does is flop her boobs out every 10 minutes or so, which is fine if you want that with no reason – but why not watch porn if that's all you want? Anderson is a TVM kind of guy and looks out of his depth with Lithgow and Arquette. He thinks all he needs to do is not shave and look moody to fit in – he is terrible and makes this film even more dull just by his presence.

Overall this is dull and aimless. Please – don't waste your time on this. I rarely see a film so poor that I struggle to watch it at all, but this felt to me like it took a year of my life to watch.

Merchant sailor Alex Walker (Kevin Anderson) is stranded in Mexico after missing his ship's departure. His wallet is stolen and the man who stole it is killed by somebody. The cops are after him for the murder. He joins up with Phillip Mills (John Lithgow) and his trophy wife Missy (Rosanna Arquette).

Kevin Anderson is a weak actor and his character isn't particularly interesting either. Arquette is broadly sexual. She even sleeps sucking her thumb. She has some fun camping it up. However Anderson is the black hole of charisma. Lithgow is possessive and jealous. The production is not high quality. If they could get a charismatic leading man, this could be an interesting trio.

Made for cable TV, "The Wrong Man" has the setup of a chase movie - Kevin Anderson has to go on the run after a murder he didn't commit - but writer Michael Thoma and director Jim McBride put the emphasis less on the pursuit than on the characters involved, turning it into a road movie with a bit of violence attached. (UK viewers note Anderson playing a character called Alexander Walker - also the name of one of Britain's leading [so I'm told] movie critics.)

The journey through Mexico isn't overflowing with action, but the interplay between Anderson and the couple he hooks up with - Ugly American John Lithgow and Sexy American wife Rosanna Arquette - keeps the attention; interlaced with wit and edge, the acting of all three principals and the refreshingly non-stereotyped Mexican police officers following the trail helps the movie seem like more than it is.

Leisurely paced without being boring, and pretty credible right up to its finale, "The Wrong Man" may not be up there with "Baby, It's You" or "The World According To Garp" in the CVs of Arquette and Lithgow, but it certainly is a long, long way from "Off The Wall" or "Raising Cain." And if all else fails, watch it for Rosanna's topless scenes (the scene in the hotel room makes it a must for Arquette fans, particularly the ones with penises).

Have to admit this thriller movie with some twists was fun and nostalgic to watch on VHS. Best recommendation to watch like you're going back in time. Good thriller also.

a brilliant film, wonderfully directed by Jim McBride: it breaks all the cheesy corny conventions of the "TV movie", the story swerves and moves and lives just as vibrantly as the characters do, this is one of the better movies I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. The movie transcends genre, the acting is believable, the characters are neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral, human or inhuman, there's a clever combination of all these things which makes them complex and frustrating maybe but never boring.

The acting is amazing, the story has real depth: it might not hit you straight away but the characters show their personality traits, and as a result more and more of themselves as the film goes on.