Impostor

This movie has a low rating for a lot of very good reasons. The main user comment on the IMDb home page (at least as of now as I write this, John DeSando's) spells them out well. It's a failure.

But--there's a real gem here. What happened was, they set out to make a short, the studio liked it for good reason, had the film makers expand it to a feature-length film, and the end product was the dog of film that failed with critics and audiences and goes down in history as a big collection of mistakes.

But if you rent the DVD, the original short is on there. It's well worth renting just for that. It's riveting, tense and provocative. Really ALL the problems users such as John DeSando rightfully point out (quoting him "a plot twist you can see all the way from Mars....The plot holes are as many as dot our own moon....") are in the parts of the feature-length version that are added.

Rent the DVD. Go right to the short. Skip the long version. Too bad the stupid studio had to ruin something good. (Shocking, I know--a movie studio took something good and tried to milk it for more and ended up spoiling it. Hard to believe, but true.)

I watched the feature length "director's cut", then viewed the 37 minute short version on the dvd. The short film is much better! It's more faithful to the PKD story and captures the theme of identity and illusion vs reality more concisely. It's essentially the beginning and ending of the feature w/additional scenes that flesh out the characters. The short makes Olham a little more contradictory - he tells his wife that his project is a good thing, then he questions what he's doing with his friend at the Project. What's missing is the interminable chase that's been done better in innumerable films (see The Running Man for example). Vincent D'Onofrio is a particularly good villain who's not really a villain (or is he?)......................

Like Total Recall, Impostor was based on a short story by Phillip K. Dick. (Dick's stories were also the inspiration for Blade Runner and Minority Report.) In my opinion Impostor is a solid science fiction film.

The core of these stories by Dick has to do with the nature of reality and Impostor is no exception. If we have memories implanted in our minds, how can we tell what is real and what is an artificial memory? Added to this in the movie is the change in a society that comes from years of war. Can we have freedom and human rights when anyone can be a spy? This combines two great traditions in sci-fi; illusion vs. reality (Total Recall) meets taking over our minds and bodies by an alien power (Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

Add to the great story concepts is superior acting by Gary Sinise and Madeleine Stowe. The supporting cast is good with Vincent D'Onofrio playing a complex character. Is he a villain? Nothing is as it seems.

With all of these positive comments, I cannot give the film a 10/10. This is a low budget film which first started as a short film and grew into a feature. While the story of Impostor IMHO is superior in some ways to Minority Report and much better than typical sci-fi, the lack of money for Impostor shows.

The director, Gary Fleder is no Speilberg, Ridley Scott or even Paul Verhoeven. Sometimes the pace of the film seemed to need tighter editing. The script in the central part of the film could have used more work to learn more about this world. And the music was just ok in supporting the action and emotion of the film.

Still Miramax was right to decide on making this a feature film rather than a short subject or straight to TV film. Impostor has some great sci-fi story ideas and good performances. 8.5/10

Impostor is a Sci-Fi movie mixed with some elements of action & mystery. This was better than I thought it would be. I even put off watching it for awhile because I did not have very high hopes for it, but it turned out pretty decent.

Gary Sinise plays Spencer Olham, a doctor along with his wife, Maya, played by Madeleine Stowe. Spencer wakes up and goes to work the next morning to find that he is a wanted man. It appears that the military and the U.S. Defense department think that he is actually a cyborg with a bomb placed in it's heart, with a mission to kill the Chancellor! Pretty far out stuff. The visuals explaining this were pretty cool, too.

Spencer manages to escape but always has the military hot on his trail. This is where the mystery comes in. The viewer is forced to wonder whether or not Spencer is actually himself, or the cyborg programmed to be Spencer. The movie does an excellent job of placing doubt in the minds of those watching, no matter which way they are leaning. If they think Spencer is really himself, it still makes you wonder. Major Hathaway, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, claims that the cyborg is merely programmed to act human, as if it really wants to live.

The special effects here are pretty good as well. At the beginning, I thought we would have another Starship Troopers (visually) on our hands. Since the story takes place in the year 2079, it would not be a good science fiction without the cool household gadgets and such. We see plenty of that here, especially in the beginning. Parts of the movie reminded me of I, Robot, Demolition Man and at times, even Star Wars. This comes recommended for science fiction fans.

I have no idea why this movie is such underrated. Yes, Gary Fleder is no Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott. He doesn't have the excellent imagery or visual wonders of the other directors' films. But at the same time, he has been more faithful to the original short story than Scott or Spielberg could have been. He has added only one major twist which made the film rather more interesting. And one major credit of the film is that it could capture quite obviously the feel of paranoia that's been the mainstay of Philip Dick's most stories.

Gary Sinise is always pleasure to watch on screen. And in this case his performance is flawless. D'Onofrio plays the tough security officer with enough passion. Madeline Stowe is rather frigid in her role.

In short, 'Impostor' is a gripping tale with solid plot and enough substance. A must see for every genre fan, regardless of the fact that one of the greatest sci-fi writer has penned the story.