Imposter film review

certificate_15

IMPOSTER

The year is 2079, and a race of aliens from Alpha Centauri has declared war on mankind.

Magnetic shields protect Earth's major cities from aerial bombardment, and citizens are monitored at all times via micro-chips implanted in their spines.

However, the alien threat is considerable: the Centaurians are abducting humans, and replacing them with booby-trapped replicants. The military, led by grizzled Major Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio), believes weapons expert Spence Olham (Gary Sinise) is one such replicant, and orders his immediate termination. However, Spence, is sure he is human, as is his wife Maya (Madeleine Stowe), a respected doctor at the local hospital.

Joining forces with mercenary-for-hire Cale (Mekhi Phifer), Spence flees for his life into the criminal underworld, from where he hopes to disprove the military's suspicions. Hathaway is in hot pursuit, and he intends to take in Spence, dead or alive. Preferably the former.

Originally conceived as one 40-minute segment of a movie triptych, Impostor has been hastily plumped and padded to achieve the feature-length 95 minutes.

The plot is inspired by a 1953 Philip K Dick short story, accounting for the obvious similarities to Blade Runner (itself based on Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) Sadly, Impostor doesn't come close to the visual splendour, or the edge-of-seat tension of Ridley Scott's dystopian masterpiece.

Director Gary Fleder seems to be on auto-pilot, and his pacing of the action sequences seldom moves into second gear. Overly energetic editing renders many of the chases a blur of incomprehensible images. Spence's ability to escape Hathaway within the blink of an eye, and likewise the police's reluctance to fire a single shot at the fugitive when he is in clear view, become very frustrating.

Sinise's performance is lifeless enough to suggest he may be an android, but he copes well with the physical aspects of the role. The computer generated special effects and sets are impressive, but unremarkable, and the ambiguous ending is the final frustration.

Impostor, quite literally, crashes and burns.