The Impostors (1998) Review
Starring: Oliver
Platt, Stanley Tucci, Alfred Molina, Tony Shalhoub, Lili Taylor, Campbell Scott
They truly don’t make movies like this anymore. All you need
to know to make this statement true is this: one of the first lines in this
film is “You stole my death.” I mean, name one movie that spends the opening
credits in complete silence with a slapstick fight that feels like it was
pulled straight from a Marx Brothers routine, or a movie that introduces events
through title cards, or even an ensemble film that actually gives every major
character in it a moment or more to shine? The answer is The Impostors, a late
nineties indie comedy from Stanley Tucci in his solo directorial debut. This is
a gem of a film: quirky, unexpected, and best of all, funny. How this film has
slipped under the radar is mystery, although I can guess why: The Impostors, in
all its hilarious glory, is not a movie for everyone. Its sense of humor is one
that would not satisfy those who find Grown Ups or Knocked Up or any film of
those sorts funny. The sense of humor here is one that feels strange at first,
with its offbeat comedy that feels like it belongs in a film from the 20’s than
one made less than 20 years ago, but for those who give it a chance, they will
be rewarded with something unforgettable. There’s no gross out humor, no fart
jokes, no jokes that are aimed to offend (unless you get easily offended by
characters portrayed as either terrorists, in some aspects of the word, or
suicidal nuts), but it still gives off a warmth that so many movies now a days
lack. It’s funny, it’s charming, it makes you care about character’s that would
be used as poorly written comedic devises in mainstream comedies, it’s
suspenseful, it’s fearful, it makes you laugh, gasp, and clap, it’s joyful, it
celebrates love, life, and death all at the same time. It’s a hidden gem in all
sense of the word.
Let’s start off with the plot. The story follows best friends
Arthur, played by Stanley Tucci, and Maurice, played by Oliver Platt, two
failed actors who do whatever than can for a performance. They do some knife
play in an outdoor café, they audition for a play directed by Woody Allen, and
they pretend to play good customer/rude customer with a bakery owner in order
to get some pastries. None of these work for an abundant of reasons: Maurice
steals Arthur’s “death,” the director’s wife takes her money out of the
production, and Maurice, playing the rude customer, ends up protecting the
baker after Arthur takes his bit too far and instead of pastries, gets tickets
to a performance of Hamlet starring Jeremy Burtom, played by Alfred Molina, an
overrated actor in their opinion. After getting in a scuffle with Burtom at a
bar and being branded as criminals, they hide in a crate to get away from
police. When they wake up the next morning, they find out they are on an ocean liner set for Paris. There, they must not only hide from Burtom, but also stop
a New York couple posing as francophones from killing 2 of the richest
passengers on board AND stop the first mate from blowing up the ship. Along the
way we are introduced to several quirky characters, including the perky
activities director, a German steward who is aggressively in love with her, an
aging gay tennis player, a suicidal lounge singer, a broke widow looking for a
rich husband, her depressed daughter, and a veiled queen.
Where do I begin? First off, unlike ensemble comedies of
late, like Valentine’s Day and Tower Heist, each character, no matter how big
the role gets their moment to shine. These little sub-plots are formed
throughout the film and as they all come together, they never felt shoehorned
in. Yes, there was at least one (the romance between the captain and the veiled
queen) that made me think “when and why did that happen?” but the rest, from
the couple’s plans to off the widow and a shriek to the romance between the
activities director, Lily, and Marco, an Italian dectective who is sent
to find Arthur and Maurice, feel natural and supported. The main plot in the
film though is how Arthur and Maurice are going to save everyone on the ship,
and with everything going on it would get pushed aside in other films. This is not the case
here. Maurice and Arthur;s storylines stay the central parts of the story. While
they are included more in the first half of the film, due to the fact that none
of the other characters are introduced until they end up on the boat, even
when all of these subplots are introduced, the friendship between Maurice and
Arthur and their plan to stop the deaths of not only 2 people, but an entire ship of
people is still in the forefront of the film. You care about these characters
and their friendship even though you know barely anything about them. You don’t
know how they met or how they became friends, their lives before the events in
the movie, how they have gotten to this point in their lives, their past
relationships, or even their last names…and yet you still care about them. They
are really likeable characters who you route for throughout the film. Unlike
the friendship in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (a film I would kind of like
to forget,) when something bad happens (which I won’t spoil) I got really upset
because the characters are written so well that you don’t want what happens to
be real. Their antics are great and their final plan in order to stop the
crooks is great. I cared for the well-being of most of the characters and the
downfall of the others, something that is rare for me to feel. The jokes barely
ever fall flat. The sense of humor is a mixture of dark and out-there, going
out with a literal bang with a very ambiguous ending that left me laughing and
wondering “what the hell just happened?” There are several great jokes here
that had me laughing my butt off, from Meistrich, the German steward, saying
that killing a man is really not that hard to the lounge singer sobbing his way
through “The Nearness Of You.” Even the jokes that break the fourth wall,
something I usually despise in comedies, work perfectly, especially the one
during the end credits that had me in stitches. It’s a comedy, that’s for sure,
and it is not shy with saying that it is one.
Now for the characters. Arthur and Maurice are great
characters with established personalities. They are both motivated in the
beginning to become successful actors and in the second half to stop the ship
from being blown to smithereens. Tucci and Platt are great in their roles with
very honest and hilarious portrayals. If I continued on about them, I would
just be repeating myself so I’ll move onto the rest of the characters. Alfred
Molina is at his douchiest as the pompous drunk that is Jeremy Burtom. Playing
a character that I have seen compared to John Barrymore, he is a very
unredeemable character who overreacts to an injury the two leads didn’t even
cause. He isn’t a likeable character, but Molina does great work making him a
funny character. Some of his lines are just perfect for the character that is
being portrayed; stuck-up, arrogant, and totally full of himself. He is a great villain. The best
character and portrayal of their character though has to be from Campbell Scott as Meistrich. Oh my god is
this guy funny. As the German steward I mentioned earlier, he has so many great
moments and lines, the most memorable being,
“You are a wild beast and I must tame you.” Every time he was on screen
I was cracking up and made an already great film even better. The rest of the cast
is brilliant. There’s Billy Connoly, in all his awesomeness, as Sparks, the
openly gay tennis player who has a great moment as he chases down Oliver Platt
in drag (don’t ask), Lili Taylor as Lily, the activities director that helps
Maurice and Arthur out throughout the film, Dana Ivey as Mrs. Essendine, a widow who is desperate to find a rich husband
(the term drop dead before they he/she gets here gets a brand new meaning),
Steve Buscemi as the suicidal lounge singer with the most ironic name in the
film (the suicidal guy is named Happy. Let that sink in for a moment..), Hope
Davis as Ivey’s depressed daughter Emily who ends up falling in love with the
equally depressed Happy, Tony Shalhoub as Voltri, the terrorist on board who,
in one of the creepier moments of the film, dry humps a bed to sound of his
lovers voice, Alison Janney and Richard Jenkins as Maxine and Johnny, the
murderous pair of lovers, and Matt McGrath as Marco, the detective on board who
is also vying (in his case successfully) for Lily’s love, who also spouts one
of the best lines in the film. There is not a weak link the cast and everyone
gives performances that are near to extremely perfect.
The only other thing that I need to talk about is something that I don’t
usually talk about. It is the subject and message the movie is most trying to convey. The
thing about this movie is that it’s not truly about one thing. It is a
comedy but it spends a lot of time on the subject of love and death. The final
line in this film is “To life and it’s many deaths.” The ending is extremely
ambiguous, with the outcome of the character’s, at least in my opinion, a questionable
one. If you exclude the main plot (the friends trying to stop the murders of 2
characters and the bombing of the ship,) death is handled a lot in this movie.
For starters, Happy attempts to kill himself at least 4 times in this movie,
Emily’s father is recently deceased and it has affected her and her mother in
very different ways, and one of the main characters is apparently killed in one
scene. One of the more poignant of quotes in this film comes from Emily, during the scene when her
mother is discussing her husband’s death and she, in her corner of the room,
deadpans, that “We don’t find death. It finds us.” The angle of how death
affects us and how it makes us react is one I found interesting. However, there
is the theme of love as well. Everyone seems to have a love interest in this
film, except for the two leads: Miss Essendine spends most of the film looking
for a, for a lack of a better term, sugar daddy, Lily and Marco are infatuated
with each other throughout the film, with their conclusion being a sweet but hilarious
one, Meistrich spends the time he doesn’t spend looking for the stowaways
aggressively hitting on Lily, Sparks hits on Maurice several times when he is both in and out
of drag, Happy’s suicidal tendencies are because of his wife, who left him for his
agent, Emily ends up falling in love with Happy because just like her, he is
obviously depressed, Maxine and Johnny are extremely in love, so in love that
they will kill to give themselves a great life, and one of Volti’s motivations
for blowing up the ship is so that he can be with his love, Regina. Another
poignant quote here is from Happy, who tells Emily when she begs him to not
want to die that people are afraid of several things, but that people should
fear love because “Love is real and it is terrifying. If you are going to be
afraid, be afraid when someone says I love you.” That is also a true message:
love is a very scary thing but as the character’s storyline progresses, they
learn that you have to face their fears. While love is scary, like all of your
fears you must face them. On the other hand, death is something that will
affect everyone someday in their life and how we react to tragedies sets in
motion how the rest of our lives will go. I don’t know what is the message of
this film, but both of these theories are ones that could fit to this movie very well.
I haven’t seen a movie this good since Perks of Being a
Wallflower (except maybe The Place Beyond the Pines, but I’m still digesting
that one.) Comedies nowadays are not as
good as this (at least the ones I have seen.) You care about the characters,
you never see the next twist or turn in the road, the jokes are always coming,
and overall it’s an extremely interesting film. I will be wondering for a while
why this film isn’t considered a classic like Groundhogs Day and The Big
Lebowski, but then again I already know the answer to this: this film is not
one that will satisfy every comedy fan. We are used to films with over-the-top
humor that is more about what the characters do than the characters themselves.
Your average moviegoer would probably hate this movie, with its title cards and
satiric comedy of performers from the 20’s to 40’s and 6 minutes of silence at
the start. Really, the reason many people have not seen The Artist (another
great movie) is because it is completely silent until the very end. Not many
would stick around after The Impostors opening credits and if they did another
part would leave because this movie has a sense of humor that not many would
like. But you know what I say? See it. See a hidden gem that so many would just
skip over. I give kudos to Stanley Tucci (who I forget to mention also wrote
this movie), Oliver Platt, and the rest of the cast and crew for making a great
work of art. It truly is something you
need to see for yourself. If you are interested in seeing this (which I highly
recommend you do), look it up on Google or whatever search engine you use and
try to find it. Give it a try and who knows. Maybe you will love it.
~Indie Princess
