No.216 : The Chameleon (2010)

The Chameleon at the IMDb

Sometimes you see a story on the news and think ‘That’ll make an interesting film!’. Other times you go with ‘mmm, that’s interesting, I wonder if ‘Tipping Point is on?’ This film falls squarely into the second category. It’s a decent set up, based on a true story, but not a lot happens and things panned out pretty much as I expected from the off.

The film tries to be interesting by jumping about with the narrative timeline but ultimately it’s about someone faking an identity and getting caught doing it. There are the motivations of the various characters to consider, such  as to how they allowed this to happen but ultimately, who cares? The films tries and fails to inject some drama and insight into proceedings but it ends up with all the excitement of a ‘Crimewatch’ re-enactment.

The films opens in 2006 with Famke Janssen’s FBI agent trawling the bayou in Louisiana, presumably for a body. Before anything happens we jump back to 2000 and a boy being found in the street claiming he had escaped from kidnappers who had held him since 1996. He says he is an American boy who had gone missing in 1996 and, given he knows the names of all of the missing boy’s family, he is reinstated to them.

The sister greets him with open arms, the brother less so. The mother, played by a scuzzy Ellen Barkin, isn’t keen at first but soon starts to confide in her ‘son‘. No one seems to worry about the boy’s change in appearance or his new French accent and no one apart from Janssen who smells a rat. She thinks the brother killed his missing sibling and his acceptance of this interloper is proof that he has something to hide. Sister and mother both have their own issues and this new transplant offers an answer to some of their problems.

After an hour Janssen, like the viewer, gets bored of all the hanging around and arranges a DNA test which proves the missing son is in fact a serial French con man, who has multiple identities. He gets charged with the impersonation but can his new foothold in the family generate any new leads into the case of the missing boy? Before long we are back at the bayou where we started - will something get resolved at last?

I wasn’t impressed by this film and had nothing invested in any of the paper thin characters. Druggie Mum Barkin was like Seymour Skinner’s Mum accepting Armin Tamzarian into her home despite all the evidence to the contrary. The sister , who was an awful actor, was just plain needy and the violent and  potentially murderous brother carried all the threat of a Teletubby.

Famke had a thankless task going through the detective motions and you have to wonder why they bothered. We knew from the start he was a big faker and even though it was a true story it beggared belief that the police would accept the ‘missing’ boy’s story at face value, especially as all his knowledge of ‘his’ family was freely available on the internet.

I think the story would have been better served as a documentary, as the dramatic elements  that were introduced didn’t take and stuck out like a sore thumb. If you need to know about this thin tale I’d recommend the Wikipedia page over this dull 90 minute hash of the facts.

THE Tag Line - He Came, He Faked He Went Away -  45%