MovieChat Forums > The Imposter (2012) Discussion > SPOILERS: The FBI Agent

SPOILERS: The FBI Agent

posted 13 years ago by gortx
34 replies | jump to latest

It's an intriguing and well-made film.

SPOILERS:

One thing that really popped out at me was the seeming initial incompetence of the FBI Agent (Nancy Fisher). With all due respect, if she had any suspicions of the Imposter at all (which, we assume is the main reason for interviewing him), how could she have let him out of the FBI office after he tells her that wild tale? All those broken bones, sexual assaults, and eye dyeing he told her could easily have been checked with a medical physical. And, how about a call to the Dentist to compare teeth?

Now, we do have the benefit of hindsight, but, it just seems like she took the Imposter's story at face value and just put the file back to the stack. Did the documentary not disclose everything she did right afterwards?

In the end, the FBI did do it's job, but, they had an awful lot of help (by the Private Eye, especially), and some lucky breaks. I've read a few accounts of the case including (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/11/080811fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all), but, I don't see any real reason to highly praise the FBI in this case. And, where the hell was local law enforcement?

[–] 235SCOPE 13 years ago

I don't know Nancy Fisher but the movie makes her look pretty naive and impressionable, like a kind of typical by-the-rules bureaucrat who could easily be swept into the web spun by a mythomaniac. I think the film suggests she was so overwhelmed by his stories of sexual violence and torture that she pretty much let him go.

[–] peacecreep 12 years ago

Exactly.

Also, many people drawn to a career of "law enforcement" are not that smart in the first place.

[–] Ambrosia-I 12 years ago

Just seen it today and I have to say that I was pretty gobsmacked at the seeming imcompetence of the FBI woman. I mean, the lad had different coloured eyes and I'm pretty sure that putting drops in people's eyes to change their colour isn't actually within the realms of possibility. I would have thought alarm bells should have rung at that point, but the woman just seemed to focus on tracking down the fictional military kidnappers/rapists.

I don't really understand why the family thought his eye colour could change either unless they were exceptionally dim or gullible. The theory that the private detective came up with began to seem increasingly feasible to me.

[–] theoffice11 12 years ago

yeah, if this is how the FBI operates well no wonder they are not famous for their competence. seriously, putting drops in the eyes to change their color and then gaining a french accent from not being allowed to speak english for 3 years? i can see how the family in their gried and delusion (and being simple, uneducated folk) could be convinced he was their son but a supposedly trained FBI agent should be better equipped.

also, (SPOILER) later on when she thinks the mom is lying, she puts her through the polygraph test and she passes, so she keeps on putting her through til she fails because she didn't like the results. this is so contrary to proper scientific protocol; she came up with a wild theory and then instead of seeing that the facts disproved it, tried to tamper with the evidence to fit her theory. i was so frustrated with her incompetence; thankfully there was the doctor and the private eye who had more common sense.

[–] ElectricKoolaidAcid 12 years ago

Re: the polygraph test with the mother. I forgot where I read the article after first watching the movie based on this story (The Chameleon), but I'm pretty sure it was written by a Guardian journalist from the UK. The article was much more informative than this doc, as it mentioned several times that the mother was on both heroin and methadone when she initially passed the test(s). In fact, the fictionalized movie probably did a better job of exposing the truth about some of the family members than this documentary did! Not even one time was it mentioned that the mother was or is a heroin addict.

Just sayin'...

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] Archnenna 9 years ago

Perhaps the person's first language isn't English.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] benkippin 12 years ago

That woman must be completely retarded. I weep for the safety of a noation protected by that bunch of clowns ifshe can even get a job as a cleaner in that place. never mind as an investigator. It beggars belief.

'You got jacked by a guy named Spooge? Not T-Bone, not Diesel, Spooge?'

[–] cmkenny 12 years ago

I agree, I think of all the people in this film she came off the worst. She was clearly in the wrong job, far too credulous and not at all sceptical about things which could easily have been checked (e.g. broken bones etc.) and the fanciful stories about eye-drops changing eye colour!

[–] TheSummer2012 12 years ago

I also thought the US embassy in Spain didn't cover itself in glory. One of the embassy staff interviewed him and came back saying: "Yes, he is American." WTF?
He had a noticeable French accent! Someone who upposedly lived the first 13 years of his life in the middle of Texas in a white, non-immigrant family just doesn't lose his American accent even when he is away for three years. It's not as if he returned after decades of not speaking English or anything like that.
Then there's the eye colour - I mean surely, someone should have at least asked the question before issuing him with a passport and sticking him on a plane.

In defence of the embassy and the FBI, I guess they were convinced by "his" sister accepting him straightaway. Just imagine the public's reaction if he actually had been Nicolas and the embassy and the FBI would not have allowed him to return to his family or had put him through a long-winded ordeal to establish his identity.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] mgr2000 12 years ago

She has to be one of the stupidest FBI agents ever.

And then to compound her stupidity, she agreed to go on camera and document for all time her stupidity in this case.

How the heck did she ever pass the FBI's training school? Maybe *she's* an imposter...

[–] fanisl 12 years ago

I am shocked that she still has her job there. There must be really low-standards to the FBI.

[–] Lord_X 12 years ago

Seriously, she seems like a character out of a Coen Brothers comedy. There's so much incompetence in this story by both American and Spanish authorities...it's unbelievable. If this were a movie instead of a documentary it would've gotten terrible reviews for its implausible and contrived plot.

Language! The thing that means stuff.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] james_rainbow-449-225611 12 years ago

To be fair to her she had to be seen to be beleiving his story. He presented himself as a child who had been sexually abused , tortured and basically told a horrific story. She was being very professional and SENSITIVE. Professionals who interview children are trained to " Believe" the children initially and then disprove or confirm their claims. However the eye change colour was faintly rediculous but again she couldnt at that time challenge that. She was probably quite traumatised what she heard.

[–] cjdan 12 years ago

Yes, she was traumatized by what she heard, she even said so. But she also said that she, herself, found it implausible that a sixteen-year-old blond boy would have a mature, brown beard shadow. The point being that there were numerous inconsistencies and questionable observations that a normal person might miss (though it seems unlikely they would in this particular case), but an FBI agent should not. There were so many flags, it rivaled the United Nations.

And definitive evidence could have been found easily and quickly to determine the deal here, once and for all, without traumatizing the family and risking a PR nightmare. Oh, I don't know, how's about something as complex as comparing two photographs of ears? O_o

[–] BlackMagikWoman 12 years ago

she is an absolute moron. i wonder how people like this get these prestigious jobs yet there are those who are quite intelligent and they can't even get their resume taken seriously.

[–] cjdan 12 years ago

Prestige can be in the eye of the beholder. As someone pointed out up-thread, law enforcement is not a field that typically attracts the best and the brightest. Contrast her with the psychiatrist.

[–] CarlitoCarleone 12 years ago

Yeah, completely agree with the OP. I thought not only was she incredibly incompetent (the a private detective and a psychologist knew immediately), but she also tried quite shamelessly to blame the family to deflect from her incompetence. I'm sure the family were hiding something, but they were quite clearly not the sharpest tools in the box, she was an FBI agent!!!

[–] 12 years ago

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