The Impostors

The Impostors is a 1998 American farce motion picture directed, written and produced by Stanley Tucci, starring Oliver Platt, Tucci, Alfred Molina, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Buscemi, and Billy Connolly.

For other uses, see Impostor (disambiguation).
The Impostors
DVD cover
Directed byStanley Tucci
Produced byElizabeth W. Alexander,
Stanley Tucci
Written byStanley Tucci
Starring
Music byWilliam Cook
Gary DeMichele
Distributed byFox Searchlight Pictures
20th Century Fox
Release date
  • October 2, 1998 (1998-10-02) (United States)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2,198,044[1]

The film, in which Oliver Platt and Stanley Tucci play a Laurel and Hardy-like odd couple of out-of work actors, is set in the depression-era 1930s; indeed, the retro style of the film is a recreation of 1930s screwball comedy. The opening silent sequence harks back to the golden days of silent film.

The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

Plot summary

In New York City, 1938 Arthur (Stanley Tucci) and Maurice (Oliver Platt) scrape a living by petty swindles, practicing their acting technique whenever they can. Following a drunken confrontation with pretentious and dreadful Shakespearean actor Sir Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina), they are forced to hide as stowaways on an ocean liner.

Unfortunately for the duo, Burtom himself turns out to be a passenger on the ship, along with a vividly diverse ensemble of larger-than-life characters: a suicidal crooner named Happy Franks (Steve Buscemi) sobs through a song; Mr. Sparks (Billy Connolly), an aging gay professional tennis player; the first mate Voltri (Tony Shalhoub), who is also a mad bomber with his own language; and many more.

Mistaken identities, pratfalls, slapstick, outrageous dialogue, and general mayhem ensue.

Cast

Reception

The Impostors holds a 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[3]

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gollark: Physical calculators are just bad, though.
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gollark: Anyway, my "CAS" was made semiironically, so instead of implementing stuff like binomial expansions directly, I implemented a pattern matching system and just put in a few rules for expanding brackets and such.

References
  1. The Impostors at Box Office Mojo
  2. "Festival de Cannes: The Impostors". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-10-03.
  3. The Impostors at Rotten Tomatoes
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