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Stanley Tucci's 'The Impostors' Is Deceptively Charming.
By Stacey Richter
HERE'S ANOTHER ADORABLE movie from Stanley Tucci, the co-writer
and director of Big Night, and an actor best known for
portraying a variety of psychokillers on TV. With The Impostors,
Tucci proves he's totally not a psychokiller; actually he's a
very nice guy with a love of acting and old movies who also has
a real talent for making light, nostalgic films complete with
people jumping into crates to hide from the police and silly chases
across the decks of an ocean liner.
Tucci can delight with such clichés because he approaches
them with intelligence and wit. The title sequence sets the tone:
Two haughty fellows meet in a café and take an instant
dislike to each other; before we know it, the encounter has degenerated
into fisticuffs, then to knives. The thin man stabs the fat one,
who staggers to a grisly, tablecloth-dragging death. This all
occurs without dialogue, silent-movie style, with the credits
interrupting like intertitles.
The next scene has the same two men sitting in a small apartment,
drinking tea. The thin one, Arthur (Tucci) is depressed, because
it was his turn to die and the fatter one, Maurice (Oliver Platt)
stole his glory. His friend is seized by deep remorse, and the
two talk it out tenderly, like lovers, which they may or may not
be. (They certainly are close, and they cavort together in their
underwear, but they sleep in separate beds in 1940s style chasteness).
This juxtaposition of over-the-top slapstick with subtle moments
of affection continues throughout the film, and accounts for much
of its charm. It's sort of a Jean Renoir meets Laurel and Hardy
effect.
Arthur and Maurice are actors, of course, and out-of-work ones
at that. They form a sweetly inseparable team (a nice change from
the aggressive friendships of buddy movies); even when they go
for auditions, they're auditioned together. But they are also
literally starving together. Hunger--and a chain of suitably kooky
events--leads them to an evening at the theater, where they witness
a performance by Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina), the most over-rated
and overly made-up actor of their time. Rather improbably (but
that's the whole point of this story) Arthur and Maurice end up
inadvertently insulting the great man (who's also a great drunk)
and getting themselves chased through the streets by some dim-witted
policemen.
And so they jump into a crate, and end up on the deck of, naturally,
an ocean liner. They try to disembark, and of course their plans
are foiled--by a Nazi-style concierge with little round glasses,
for one. It's when Arthur and Maurice find themselves stranded
and hunted on the ocean liner that The Impostors really
hits its stride. Tucci's background as an actor shines through
in the script, and his skill becomes evident when dealing with
the interwoven destinies of his ensemble cast.
We're introduced to the eccentric passengers one by one, as if
each were a different animal boarding Noah's ark. There's a depressed
singer named Happy (Steve Buscemi), a mysteriously veiled queen
(Isabella Rossellini) and a chirpy social director (Lili Taylor),
among others. It's only a matter of time before they're all inextricably
intertwined, falling in and out of love, etc. Then there's the
matter of a saboteur's bomb.
Arthur and Maurice, meanwhile, are being chased all over the
ship by the evil actor Burtom who, wouldn't you know it, turns
out to be one of the passengers too! It seems that hell hath no
fury like an egomaniacal actor insulted, and he's determined that
the stowaways should be apprehended, "dead or alive!"
Disguises are employed, and hijinks ensue, including a man in
a woman's dress and a ripped off toupee--the old comic standards,
and it's a tribute to Tucci and his cast that it's all funny and
fresh. The big, corny slapstick moments are balanced by subtle
acting and a kind of sweetness that's rarely found in the movies
these days--at least not between men. Yet Tucci and Platt have
a breezy rapport that seems sincere and winning.
And, like in Big Night, The Impostors has a scene at the
end where all the players, with all their romances fulfilled and
their misunderstandings resolved, dance around the boat happily,
following Maurice and Arthur. It's about togetherness, darn it!
So grab your best friend, even if don't have a sexually ambiguous
relationship with them, and get to the theater! It's not often
that a movie this charming comes down the pike.
The Impostors opens Friday, October 2. See this
week's film times for information.
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