IMPOSTOR
The scariest thing about Philip K. Dick is that he's always relevant. Based on
a 1952 Dick short story, Gary Fleder's Impostor isn't especially
scintillating science fiction on its own, but in the light of our ongoing
national crisis, it seems eerily prescient.
In the year 2079, war has raged with the alien Alpha Centauri for a decade,
and as super-scientist Spencer Olham (Gary Sinise) notes in a voiceover,
luxuries like democracy have long since been forgotten. But personal liberties
are one thing; personal identity is another, and Olham finds his very being
challenged when Earth Security Agency head Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio) --
think John Ashcroft in a Matrix-like outfit -- accuses him of being a
Centauri cyborg implanted with a bomb and programmed as an assassin. Then the
chase begins, none too compellingly executed (Olham has been given a dose of
some mind-altering drug to allow Fleder some jazzy camerawork and editing),
through a drab future dystopia that looks like parts of present-day Detroit.
Intentionally or not, Impostor wryly demonstrates that the evils of
xenophobia, despotism, and jingoistic paranoia, rife in the McCarthyite era in
which the story was first written, never go out of style. At the Apple
Valley, Campus, Entertainment, Flagship, Holiday, Hoyts Providence 16,
Showcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas.
Issue Date: January 11 - 17, 2002
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