The Imposter (2012)

Masterful Cinema

Great Film overall

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Short and Simple Review by WubsTheFadgerWord of Warning: I would recommend going into this film completely blind. Watching this film with no information about it is the best way to see it.The story is extremely gripping. This documentary/mystery film is full of twists, real life sadness, and a powerful story. It leaves you with many unanswered questions, but does so in a way that leaves you tingling in contemplation. The plot can be disturbing to some and at times it can be quite scary.The acting and storytelling is fluent. Most of the acting is done by people who had first hand accounts of the real life story. Some of the acting is reenacted which brings some depth and suspense to the story. The twist is very unexpected and it is deal with care.The tone throughout the film is very dark. There are moments that send chills down your spine. The pacing is okay but there are parts in the film that seemed out of place. In the beginning, I found myself getting lost in all the things that were going on.Pros: Great story, amazing twist, unanswered questions, powerful storytelling, consistent tone, and strong first hand accounts in regard to the storyCons: Okay pacing and some moments that were a bit confusingOverall Rating: 8.2P.S. If you enjoyed this film, you might also enjoy Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008). It is a documentary film that has the same mix of drama and crime.

The story behind "The Imposter" is almost impossible to believe - yet it is true. It's the perfect material for the making of a documentary film, yet the filmmakers seem to prioritize stylistic devices and dramatic suspense over the story itself. Documentary cinema is a unique form wherein journalism meets visual storytelling, and yet "The Imposter" seems to act in conflict with every aspect that is unique to the form, despite being in possession of the perfect source material. Interviews with the subjects are spliced together with dramatic re-enactments that verge on mimicking an actual drama film - one would think that, in doing so, a successful merging of drama and real life would be accomplished. Instead, the film teeters between an ostentatious documentary and a drama composed of nothing but exposition-oriented dialogue. In an attempt to imbue the documentary with further dramatic aspects, a musical score is ever-present - yet this only serves to hinder the film. The score is unremarkable in every aspect, and serves to hold the viewer by the hand - instructing them on what emotions to feel, rather than add any sort of sensual dimension to the experience. This, combined with the film's devotion to overt stylistic devices that seek to weld the non-fiction portions with the dramatic, results in an overall gimmicky film that ultimately interferes with the very story that has served as its bedrock. Throughout the film, the aspects unique to documentary cinema are often identifiable by the regard in which they are blatantly disregarded - it's not that they are ignored, but specifically refuted. During the film's final act, the story takes a completely unexpected turn, and the film is doused in suspense. Suddenly, everything we've been led to believe about the situation being reported appears uncertain, and the viewer is hooked. This is a strong moment in the film, and while it does serve to lift the quality at this point, it also highlights where the film has gone so wrong - the strongest moment in the film is as a direct result of events within the chosen story line, and not as a result of forged drama or artistic flourish. While documentary films and artistic style are not mutually exclusive - in fact, certain films demonstrate that they can work remarkably well together - the style should serve to heighten the material being worked with. In "The Imposter('s)" case, the added showmanship and dramatic techniques only serve to impose, as though a documentary and a drama film collided with one another and were forced upwards, lifting from the chaos and rubble a rough and jagged product, as tectonic plates impacting to form a mountain.

This is one of those flicks that I think I have seen before or rather tried to watch before but could not finish it. Well, it happened again. For the life of me I cannot fathom how these people fell for this fraud. I really don't. It is not like Six Degrees of Separation. It is not like the whole town did not know what Nicholas looked like. I don't care what kind of sex slave you were, your eyes do not change from blue to brown and you don't end up with a French accent having been abducted to Spain either.As for the real Nicholas, why does a 13-year-old have so many tattoes and how in less than 24 hours, did the impostor get them made to match with no scarring or anything by the time the sister arrived? And the sister said he had said kiss my ass to the family and run away for a day or two several times before - a little kid?I don't know. I just don't know. But I cannot finish the movie. IT hurts too much to see the family falling for this guy.

I read a few reviews which admonished me not to discover too much about this "mysterious and compelling" story beforehand so I didn't.I really enjoy good documentary films so I watched it with an open mind and was ready to be compelled and mystified but I wasn't in the least.I found it all too obvious. A dark-haired French-speaking young man pretends to be a missing blond-haired English-speaking American boy and is apparently welcomed by his clearly dysfunctional family with open arms.So what's going to happen? He is discovered to be a fake(duh)and the family fall under suspicion and we eventually discover that one of them was a junkie and killed himself shortly after the boy went missing.Not much mystery or compulsion there. We are told of the mesmerising abilities and evil nature of the bogus heir apparent but he is no more than a failed chancer,more intelligent than he wants to appear but not as bright as he thinks he is.I've met plenty of those.The only surprise I found was how unbelievably thick and incompetent the relevant American officials were.It was like watching a thriller where you work out the entire plot in the first five minutes and then sit there bored stiff as it unfolds exactly thus. I'm sorry to review this film so negatively when many people obviously enjoyed it but if you are looking for mystery and intellectual challenges,you won't find them here in my opinion. A well-crafted but spuriously sensational film.