The Imposter 2012

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: This is as much a film about self-deception as it is about deception, and as such, it is a study in pain. Read more

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: "The Imposter" is slippery, manipulative, unstable and smoothly confounding. It's also one of the most entertaining documentaries to appear since "Exit Through the Gift Shop," a film similarly obsessed with role playing and deception. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's ... practically unbelievable, but you won't be able to look away. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Layton controls the information so tightly that he's able to spring a few surprises on the audience, including one towards the end designed to get us to understand how easy it is to buy into a well-told story, even when there's no evidence to support it. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "The Imposter" becomes more than just a missing-persons drama. It hints at something much darker: a real-life horror story, the full truth of which may never be known. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Director Bart Layton takes a story that was already fascinatingly weird to begin with and makes it even more compelling by structuring it as a shadowy film noir. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: Beverly 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. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: You may begin to wonder if you aren't being conned by the movie yourself. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: This is one creepy mystery. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It tells a true story that is so oh wow! unbelievable, so deeply, compellingly stranger than fiction, that you don't so much watch the film as get addicted to it. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Doesn't just offer up the closest thing to the honest truth in a still slippery case, it doles out the real-life revelations with a skilled precision that keeps the film exciting without ever becoming exploitative. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: That old idiom about truth being stranger than fiction is an understatement when applied to Bart Layton's enthralling documentary. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: This 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. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The most fascinating aspect of the movie is why the missing boy's family believed the imposter's story. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: As fiction, it would never fly. But "The Imposter" happens to be true, and it's a jaw-dropper. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The movie is fascinating, but it leaves you uneasy, because you don't always know who you're watching (actor? family member?), and you begin to feel that you're being scammed, too. Read more

Scott Tobias, NPR: Sporting a sly grin that's just this side of sinister, Bourdin makes a riveting subject, not least because he could still be an unreliable narrator. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: See it and marvel that the least plausible lies are the ones we tell ourselves. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: Layton's dazzling film is an exciting, edge-of-your-seat experience superior to any Hollywood mystery you're likely to see for a long time. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: This true story plays like a gripping psychological thriller, offering hard speculation and harder truths. You won't be able to get it out of your head. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Rarely has the con game, and the human capacity to believe in improbable outcomes, been taken to such extremes as we see in "The Imposter"... Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Layton's film joins the top ranks of nonfiction films because he recognizes that in this case no solution could be as engrossing as the questions. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The Imposter" is one of the best films of the year. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, The Atlantic: Centered on a 15-year-old cold case, there should be no real surprises here. Why, then, is the experience of watching The Imposter one of edge-of-the-seat disbelief and nerve-jangling thrills? Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: In the annals of forged identity flicks, this is a towering Everest, dwarfing the deceivers in the likes of Catch Me If You Can and F for Fake. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: This is edge-of-your-seat stuff and the difficulty is in the telling of the tale. To give any of this film away is a crime. You simply have to see it for yourself. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: You couldn't make this stuff up - and no one would buy it as fiction. But as a documentary, it's a different matter. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Go and be stunned. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: The 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. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: The story still harbors queasy mysteries at its center, as true-crime TV pro Layton micro-analyzes every step of the case, via interviews with the Texans, Bourdin, and the FBI. Read more

Mark Jenkins, Washington Post: "The Imposter" initially seems to be a tutorial in identity theft, as well as a cautionary tale about the susceptibility of people who have lost a loved one. But that's not the half of it. Read more