Introduction

Impostor is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film based upon the 1953 short story “Impostor” by Philip K. Dick.

In the future, an alien race uses androids as bombs to attack Earth. A government weapons specialist is accused of being one such android and sets out to prove his innocence.

The film starred Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Mekhi Phifer and was directed by Gary Fleder.

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Outline

The film takes place in 2079. Forty-five years earlier, Earth was attacked by a hostile and implacable alien civilisation from Alpha Centauri. Force shield domes are put in place to protect cities, and a totalitarian global military government is established to effect the war and the survival of humans. The Centaurians have never been physically seen.

The film follows Spencer Olham, a designer of top-secret government weapons. One day while on his way to work, he is arrested by Major Hathaway of the Earth Security Administration (ESA), being identified as a replicant created by the aliens. The ESA intercepted an alien transmission which cryptanalysts decoded as programming Olham’s target to be the Chancellor, whom he was scheduled to meet. Such replicants are perfect biological copies of existing humans, complete with transplanted memories, and do not know they are replicants. Each has a powerful “U-bomb” in their chest in the exact design of a human heart, which can only be detected by dissection or a high-tech medical scan, since it only arms itself and detonates when it gets in close proximity to its target. Detection via the special scan works by comparing against a previous scan, if there was one.

Major Hathaway begins interrogating Olham. As Hathaway is about to drill out Olham’s chest to find the bomb, Olham breaks loose and escapes, accidentally killing his friend Nelson in the process. With the help of underground stalker Cale, Olham avoids capture and sneaks into the hospital where his wife Maya is an administrator to get the high-tech scan redone and prove he is not a replicant. But the scan is interrupted by security forces before it can deliver the answer.

That evening, after fleeing from the city, Olham and Maya are eventually captured by Hathaway’s troops in a forest near an alien crash site, close to the spot where they spent a romantic weekend just a week or so before Olham’s arrest. Inside the ship they discover the corpse of the real Maya, and Hathaway shoots and kills the replicant before she can detonate. Hathaway thinks he has killed the true impostor, but as his men move debris away from the Centauri ship, the real Spencer Olham’s body is revealed. At that moment, Olham realises aloud that both Maya and himself really are alien replicants … and the secondary trigger (his awareness of what he truly is) detonates his U-bomb, destroying himself, Hathaway, his troops, and everything else in a wide area in a fiery nuclear explosion.

In the final scene, the news announces that Hathaway and the Olhams were killed in an alien enemy attack, as if the government were covering up the truth or did not know what actually happened. Cale wonders if he ever really knew Olham’s true identity.

Cast

• Gary Sinise as Spencer Olham.
• Madeleine Stowe as Maya Olham.
• Vincent D’Onofrio as Hathaway.
• Mekhi Phifer as Cale.
• Tony Shalhoub as Nelson Gittes.
• Tim Guinee as Dr. Carone.
• Gary Dourdan as Captain Burke.
• Lindsay Crouse as Chancellor.
• Clarence Williams III as Secretary of Defence (uncredited).
• Elizabeth Pena as Midwife.
• Shane Brolly as Lt. Burrows.
• Golden Brooks as Cale’s Sister.
• Ted King as RMR Operator.
• Rachel Luttrell as Scan Room Nurse.

Trivia

• The film adaptation was originally planned to be one segment of a three-part science fiction anthology film titled Light Years, but was the only segment filmed before the project fell apart.
  • The other shorts were to be adaptations of Isaac Asimov’s story “The Last Question” by Bryan Singer and Donald A. Wollheim’s story “Mimic” by Matthew Robbins.
  • “Mimic” had already been adapted into a film of the same name, but with a different script.
• The short was originally written by Scott Rosenberg, with revisions by Mark Protosevich and Caroline Case.
  • When it was decided to expand the short into a feature-length film, additional scenes were written by Richard Jeffries, Ehren Kruger, and David Twohy.
• Burn areas in Running Springs, California, were used to create the spacecraft crash site.
  • Sets were constructed in Angeles National Forest and in numerous areas around Los Angeles.
  • Most of the interiors were built on stage in Manhattan Beach, including a two-story hospital and 3-story pharmacy, and a commuter transport station with articulated commuter “bugs”.
  • Other filming locations included the Coachella Valley.
• The movie was made on an estimated $40 million budget.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): Gary Fleder.
• Producer(s): Gary Fleder, Marty Katz, Daniel Lupi, and Gary Sinise.
• Writer(s): Caroline Case (screenplay), Ehren Kruger (screenplay), David Twohy (screenplay), and Scott Rosenberg (adaptation).
• Music: Mark Isham.
• Cinematography: Robert Elswit.
• Editor(s): Armen Minasian and Bob Ducsay.
• Production:
• Distributor(s): Dimension Films.
• Release Date: 27 October 2001 (Japan), 04 December 2001 (California, US), and 04 January 2002 (US general release).
• Running time: 95 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.

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