Here's a documentary film that if adapted into a narrative feature would simply be laughed out of the cinema; it's so thoroughly implausible that short of being presented in factual doc-form, it is practically impossible for an audience to buy into it. But being a doc as it is, it's one of the most frightening, engrossing, and unexpectedly funny films of the year about unsavoury individuals in America's South, and the sneaky central figure who appears to have led them all there. The story is ripped from 1997 tabloid headlines, where Frédéric Bourdin, a 23-year-old Frenchman, managed to convince a grieving Texan family that he was their son, Nicholas Barclay, who had been missing for 3 years prior. How did he do this? Why did the family not rumble him? And what happened to the real Nicholas Barclay? While director Bart Layton doesn't have all the answers - chiefly the most tragic thread left hanging for the family - he outlays Bourdin's huge web of deceit in a transfixing, arresting manner, dropping surprise after surprise in front of the viewer, a practise that becomes more terrifying and also more amusing as it moves along (through the sheer incredulity of it all). Bourdin proves a frightening, charismatic presence on screen, only too keen to detail how he deceived the family, loathable as he explains it, yet we can't help but admire his gaul and intellect somewhat. Suitably ambiguous, haunting, and pretty close to unbelievable, The Imposter is everything you could want in a crime story, whether doc or fiction feature. The Imposter is released on DVD/Blu-Ray January 7th, 2013.