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80It's all a seedy, sordid mess, and it only gets worse -- and more and more intriguing. Layton engages in re-enactments of some parts of the story, a tactic that is either helpful or annoying, depending on your appetite for such things.
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78The crime is beyond bizarre, and the film is relentlessly suspenseful, but perhaps the most disturbing question of all is this: Whatever happened to Nicholas Barclay? To that, there remains no satisfactory answer.
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50Beverly Dollarhide, Nicholas's mother, says of the period after her son's disappearance, "My main goal in life at that time was not to think." Apparently, the filmmakers have taken a cue from her. At least her unwillingness to think makes sense.
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60A true crime tale with added layers of intrigue and atmosphere.
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75The Imposter has too many reenactments for my taste, and Bourdin is glorified by Layton more often than he is condemned. Still, this is one creepy mystery.
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Aug 20, 2012100The year's most fascinating and frightening doc so far, The Imposter delves far beneath the hysterical tabloid headlines.
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91The documentary equivalent of a page-turner.
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80This is a train wreck you think you see coming, but no matter how prepared you are the nature and extent of the damage will overwhelm you.
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75The most fascinating aspect of The Imposter, though, is why the missing boy's family believed his story.
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60There's a good reason why the true-crime film The Imposter is a documentary: If someone tried to pass off this bizarre Texas tale as fiction, nobody would believe it.
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Jul 17, 201263As a thriller, The Imposter is gripping. As a documentary, it provokes confusion and annoyance.
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Jul 13, 201288Despite a bunch of fourth-wall-breaking re-enactments, the look is consistent with most TV true-crime stories. But the way Layton parcels out information makes this story as strange and fascinating as anyone could desire.
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100Gripping, hair-raising documentary.
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75Director Bart Layton's film takes us to such strange and emotionally-charged places that we cannot believe that what we're seeing is real, even though it demonstrably is.
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75A movie that offers hard speculation and harder truths. You won't be able to get it out of your head.
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63The film shrewdly opts not to proffer its own hypothesis about the true reasons behind the Gibson family buying Frédéric Bourdin's story.
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100One of the best films of the year.
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83The Imposter strings the audience along, to get them to understand first-hand how easy it is to buy into a well-told story, even when there's no evidence to support it.
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75The utterly bizarre story made national news when it broke, has since provided much magazine fodder, and popped up only two years ago adapted into a dramatic feature. Now it receives the documentary treatment and, in the devilishly manipulative hands of director Bart Layton, what a treatment it is – the weirdness just gets weirder.
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Jul 10, 201290A mesmerizing psychological thriller bulging with twists, turns, nasty insinuations and shocking revelations that might have leapt from the pages of a Patricia Highsmith novel, The Imposter is all the more astonishing because it actually happened.
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80One of the most entertaining documentaries to appear since "Exit Through the Gift Shop," a film similarly obsessed with role playing and deception.
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75The Imposter is a great commentary on the subjectivity of any event, and one that probes deeply into the motivations of its subjects.
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80Blessed with an improbable-but-true story that functions on many ironic levels, this clever documentary ultimately conveys more about the complex American character - shifting between intimacy and criminality - than a whole shelf of fiction films.
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Aug 5, 2012100Creepier than "Catfish" and as cinematic as "Man On Wire," this is an unnerving story immaculately told and a strong contender for documentary of the year.
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Jul 10, 201280The Imposter makes slick work of its wily subject, using atmospheric reenactments and stark, soul-baring interviews to explore a mind-boggling case of false identity.
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70Thick with reenactments and cute cutaways, the movie evolves into a cultural inquisition, following this stranger through the strange land of bad-news America, where the truth is still waiting to be exhumed.
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Aug 9, 201275What's most fascinating are the movie's larger questions about why some people tell impossible lies -- and why others believe them.
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