Warning: There may be a few spoilers ahead, can you identify them?
The Imposter is based on a true story. Stranger than fiction yadda yadda yadda. I, personally, went into the movie theatre under the impression it was one of those fancy fake-umentaries, and it didn't do the greatest job of convincing me it wasn't. It's repetitive, drawn out, has an incredibly uninteresting middle section and, despite a few rather sinister twists, leaves you in the same place you were when you sat your ass down to watch it in the first place.
A man was snoring. In the cinema. Yes - a man snored. And it does have a VERY long and drawn out middle section so you can't blame the poor guy. Another reason to fall asleep is that the imposter, who we'll call Nicholas Barclay, real name Frédéric Bourdin, has an obsession with repeatedly saying the same thing to the camera again and again and again. "I'm not gonna get away with it," took up what felt like 15 minutes of screen time. And then we had about 20 minutes of, "Wow, I can't believe I actually got away with it," and so on and so forth. Vacant looking family members, saying what they've said five times before, over and over. All the while, surely, the majority of the audience is questioning the likelihood of all these peculiar events. But - that doesn't even count, because it all actually happened! Nevertheless, in mourning, yes, you might believe things you otherwise wouldn't and you might behave strangely, but the documentary toys with us like a naff American comedy drama - should we believe this person or that person, etc, until in the end we come to recognise the way in which facts are dramatised and presented to us. We're nodding - yes, yes - get on with it. Get to the juicy bits. We know that, and that, you said it like ten times already...
 |
| Thinking about what to dress as for Halloween this year... |
Gotta ask, if fake-Nic was being hunted all along by amazing secret agents who were familiar with the way he went about stealing identities ('he always wore glasses') due to the fact they know he's already posed as an unimaginably long list of people, always with missing kids as some sort of link, then why the hell was not a single eyebrow raised when fake-sodding-Nic ended up on TV jabbering away about how his unconvincing story is actually the truth?! The whole ordeal is too dramatised to be believable - which sucks, as it's real! Freaky music is great in docs but how about calming it down a smidge and being clear here - what ACTUALLY happened and what's the stuff you've made up to fill in the gaps? The gaps in the doc, that is. ("Stick an old man in with a shovel - that'll get us to the finish line!")
 |
| "Ear! Listen to this!" |
Maybe I'm a complete knob end and should have done my research. Perhaps I just can't tell a flippin' amazing docu-movie from an animated Disney flick starring a fluffy dog called Bolt (now that's a good movie!) - but I'd encourage everyone to sit through a dark documentary once in a while, about killers, ghosts or even Hitler. This unfortunate tale about a string of whacky, but quite true and indeed quite unsettling events, just doesn't hit the spot. It's wonderfully filmed though. Granted - at times a little over-stylised. Perhaps things would have worked out better if instead of being encouraged to have our eyeballs excitedly orgasm over slow-mo's and switched up voiceovers we were focusing solely on what the story was all about, which should have been fascinating enough to watch even if it was done at a fraction of the price for Channel 5.
Truthfully though, seriously, it's an incredible real life story and one you should try your hardest to enjoy - fact or fiction! It does, however, come across as slightly nasty to say that this terrible thing that actually happened to a bunch of unlucky people is ultimately boring to watch as a doc, but yep - that's pretty much what's being said here. Sorry for that.
★★☆☆☆
Roo