Rating: R
Genre:
Science Fiction
Theatrical Release: 01/04/2001(USA)
Release Date: 07/09/2002
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time: 102 Minutes
Flags: Sci-Fi Violence
Distributor/Studio: Dimension
This long-delayed
science fiction thriller from director
Gary Fleder was actually filmed prior to his box-office hit
Don't Say a Word (2001), which preceded it in theaters by several months. Based on a 1953 short story by
Philip K. Dick, the film shares that schizophrenic author's long-running obsessions with concealed identity and humanity's potential inferiority to alternative life forms.
Gary Sinise stars as
Spencer John Olham, a respected government scientist in the year 2079 trying to devise a secret weapon that will help his fellow humans win a decade-long war with invading aliens that are cloning human subjects and using the replicas as walking time bombs. Suddenly,
Olham is accused of being an alien spy and a nationwide manhunt to capture him ensues. With even his doctor wife (
Madeleine Stowe) unsure that she can trust him,
Olham must uncover the truth on his own, even as he's relentlessly pursued by
Hathaway (
Vincent D'Onofrio), a federal agent charged with destroying the clones.
Imposter has a complicated history, originally produced in early 2000 as a 30-minute short to be included in an anthology entitled "The Light Years Trilogy," a project that never got off the ground. So impressed was
Dimension Films with the completed piece, however, that the footage was incorporated into a new feature version. That film was then shuffled around the release schedule for more than a year as effects were completed, reshoots were ordered, and the film was recut for a PG-13 rating instead of its original R. The R-rated "director's cut" was later released on DVD.
~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide