The Imposter.

Non-fiction thriller..... Frédéric Bourdin in The Imposter.

In some ways its hard to believe that The Imposter is non-fiction, it did happen, the events told in the movie are real and it is shocking. It was not all in part, filmed as a documentary with some sequences recreated with actors so you are left at the end thinking what bits were real and what was faked. It focuses on the case of Nicholas Barclay, a 13 year-old boy living in San Antonio, Texas who never returned home after playing basketball with friends. He is found over three years later, in Madrid, Spain. The 16 year-old they found was not Nicholas Barclay, and he was not sixteen. He was in fact, Frédéric Bourdin, a 23 year-old French con-man now dubbed "The Chameleon", for he has since 2005, adopted over 500 identities. The documentary goes on, with all interviews with Nicholas Barclay's family and Bourdin himself shown as talking heads. Other sequences are done using actual footage from the event or mocked up with actors. Bourdin returns with Nicholas's sister, Carey Gibson who says he is Nicholas and he meets the family. As to the surprise of the public and press, they accept him although he looks nothing like Nicholas. They have different color of eyes, different skin tone, rough outline of a dark beard and as one interviewee says, if Nicholas Barclay were to have a beard at 16, it wouldn't be black. Not everyone is convinced that this is Nicholas, the two main people unconvinced are Nancy Fisher, an FBI Special Agent and Texas private detective Charlie Parker. It's brilliant, gripping stuff and from the moment it opens you are drawn in. You want answers to so many questions throughout and some are answered. Others are not, as the public and Nicholas Barclay's family don't actually know the answers to them. So completely amazing, it feels like a thriller, not a non-fiction documentary.

5/5

Brave.

Sweet and sour.... Kelly Macdonald as Merida in Brave.

The annual cinematic tradition of the Pixar film is something movie goers look ahead to. I am joined with those people as I already look forward to Pixar's next treats such as Monsters University and am delighted at the possibility of a sequel to Finding Nemo. I won't defend Pixar all the time as they have given us some poor films, WALL-E had charm but wasn't great while I regret the Cars films existence. Brave is like WALL-E, full of charm and decent characters, the main thing letting the film down is the plot. It's that of a Disney movie, bland and predictable. The finale to the whole thing is so simple and reliant on magical mumbo-jumbo, something worthy of a Doctor Who story line. It has its moments and there is a touching montage between mother and daughter, I'll get onto that in a minute. Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald plays feisty princess Merida, a unsettled teenager that is shocked to discover she is to be married. The way of her betrothal is a Highland Games-style competition for the winner to take her hand in marriage. Quite obviously infuriated by this situation she storms off into the local forest to find a funny old witch (voiced by Julie Walters) who is in the wood-carving business. She gives Merida a spell to help change her strict mother, Queen Elinor's (Emma Thompson) mind about the forced marriage but as predicted it doesn't go right. The queen ends up as a charming bear and the princess is forced to hide her mother from the bear hating King Fergus (voiced by true Scots actor Billy Connolly). Things get tricky and Merida is forced to think of a way to help her transformed matriarch before the sun rises again.  The color is stunning and beautiful but the background is stereotypical Scotland, something you'd see in a Chinese advert or even a VisitScotland brochure. It's good fun stuff and obviously not aimed at young kids, like the Cars movies. So now you must be asking, is it aimed at adults. The answer is again, no, Brave isn't directed at lovers of Pixar's kookiness or younger lovers of anything that moves on a screen. I am at the time of writing, still wondering who it is aimed at.

4/5