VividSimon Simply Perfect

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Micitype Pretty Good

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

perkypops We can never be sure about dramatised true stories because tricks are played on our memories even as we try to retell with accuracy. This story of a character who is unlikely to be who he claims to be from the start is as much about doubts as it is about rebuilding hopes. From the opening shots of a body hunt through to the final frames this film attempts to tackle the driving forces of all the characters who make up the plot by showing up flaws and how all of us are sometimes drawn to papering over cracks in our thoughts.The film is quite clever in raising doubt in our minds because every player seems flawed from Fortin/Randall (Grondin), through Kimberly (Barkin), to Johnson (Janssen) as an FBI agent who seems to have no doubts. Perhaps a clumsy unevenness in the screenplay sometimes makes following the story a little less taut than it should be, but I could not fault the quality of the acting.Even a family torn apart by an undisclosed tragedy seem very adept at keeping things as they are when redemption is a possibility but the actual interaction between them is not well rehearsed in this script. Too much focus is perhaps played on the mother's relationship with her "son" when there was perhaps a lot of mileage elsewhere.I would guess many people would want a more commercial ending to a film like this and that has probably detracted from it popularity since it does stick to events as they happened but for me the real let down, having such a great cast, was a failure to grasp the real guts of the story and perhaps reveal a little more of what really may have happened.Seven out of ten for acting from a fine cast.

Saad Khan La Chameléon – The Chameleon – TRASH IT (C) The movie is based upon the true life of European impostor Frédéric Bourdin. He has been in more than 100 houses all over the Europe pretending as their missing sons. His reason for living with different families is not because he wants to rob or hurt them but he just want to seek "Love and Affection". The movie takes place when he caught first time pretending to be teen missing child in taxes, USA in age 25. The premise of the movie is really interesting but poor direction and weak screenplay made it completely mediocre and sloppy. The director never knew whether he wanted this movie to be a family drama or a thriller. Marc-Andre Grondin was good but lacked proper direction as times he was sweet and at times he seemed psychopath. Emilie De Ravin, Famke Jensen and Brian Geraghty did a fine job. Nick Stahl and Ellen Berkin performance was over the top. On the whole, it's very mediocre and doesn't do justice to the story.

BloedEnMelk "The Chameleon" is roughly based on the case of the disappearance of Nicholas Barclay, and the impostor Frederic Bourdin.The movie stays reasonably close to the facts, though there are some mayor things changed that IMO was totally unnecessary. At the same time, more could have been done with other things. I am on purpose gonna keep this all pretty vague; as I do not want to spoil anything. If you want to know about the real case, google on it. It is a very interesting thing to do.I would definitely have liked to have seen more background about Frederic. The case of Nicholas wasn't the first time he imposed as a missing child, neither was it the last time. As if the whole story about Nicholas wasn't bizarre enough, it gets more and more bizarre if you read up on Bourdin. He truly deserves the name Chameleon; it is incredible how good this guy is at languages and in blending in. I do understand that the movie's focus was on only one of his crimes, but I think a bit more history would have made it all even more absurd. Now, you almost feel at least a bit pity for Bourdin, but that should not happen. After all, the guy was/is a very disturbed man who didn't give a *beep* about the feelings of his victims.The overall acting was not very good. Famke Janssen made the best of it and steals the scenes when she comes in, but I was unfortunately pretty unconvinced by the lead character. The way the story unfolds was just not good enough to convince, and the characters way too shallow. Many things are there in potential, but somehow it just doesn't work. It could have been an 'edge of your seat' thriller or drama, but it simply isn't. Throughout the whole story, it just lacks something. An other reviewer used the word 'dull', and I think that's quite a good description. All in all; an intriguing case made to a less intriguing movie.(Ps: An interesting little fact; Bourdin himself worked as a creative consultant for this movie. )

joelcuerrier-1 I have seen this movie yesterday and the director went on to ask that we post reviews of his movie on this very site during the Q&A, so I shall oblige. The heart of the problem seem to be that his vision was rejected by the producers and that the final cut done by the producers is such a disgrace that he is going around in festivals to show his own cut.When I asked him if or when the movie would be released in North-America, he answered that it would most likely go directly to DVD, which is a shame cause it really was a tense, effective thriller, faithful to the real events it depict in a stylistically gorgeous mastery. It is a psychological thriller with great actors and a subtly photographed scenery of the deep south, in the down and dirty poor neighborhood of the drugged and drunk underclass. Of course, it isn't really uplifting, but the characters are real people playing out their desperation. The narrative is well constructed and keep you interested through out, especially in the case you had no idea about the event it portrays, you'll get drawn to it only through the sheer magnetism of the central character, who also happen to be despicable in many ways, like everyone else around him.So, let's hope you'll get a chance to see this, the way it was intended to be seen. The director's cut wasn't longish or uselessly shocking, one part that was deleted involved the main character shaving his whole body in the first scene. Perhaps, for the prude and easily upset, it could be disturbing, but isn't that key to building tension in a thriller, to disturb the audience. This first scene should be in the movie, cause it is key to the psychology of the main character. Seeing a grown man shave the hair off his chest shouldn't be cause for concern, especially these days when many men are doing it to follow a trend that made hairy men undesirable. It's a surprising scene, as it is something I never seen depicted on screen, but I don't believe it would offend neither men nor women. There is no actual nudity and very little violence in this movie.To conclude, if you have a chance and it is playing in a festival near you, try to see it and review it too. I believe it should get to be seen and get a proper distribution. It's a solid thriller that wasn't just meant to do the festival circuit.