Imperium (2016)

Genres

Crime, Thriller

Director

Daniel Ragussis

Country

USA

Cast

Daniel Radcliffe, Toni Collette, Tracy Letts, Sam Trammell, Nestor Carbonell, Devin Druid, Pawel Szajda, Chris Sullivan, Burn Gorman, Seth Numrich, Jasson Finney, Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, David Aranovich, Paul H Chapman

Storyline

An FBI agent (Daniel Radcliffe) goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group.

Opinion

I think I first read about Imperium on someone's blog, I thought it was interesting and decided to give it a chance. And it was interesting. The problem is that the execution leaves much to be desired.

Although a little clichéed, the story started off very well and it immediately grabbed my attention. Unfortunately, as it developed, it got more and more disappointing. I wasn't expecting any kind of twist because this type of stories usually doesn't have major twists, but I wasn't expecting it to be filled with plot holes and mistakes either. Or being so unconvincing - there's no way a geeky FBI agent would manage to infiltrate in a white supremacy group so easily. Or to be closed in such a poor way with a finale that doesn't seem to consider what happened earlier on.

A consistent and plausible story isn't the only thing the writers failed to deliver. The characters as well are mediocre. They have little development and depth and they come off quite bland and tedious. Not to mention the casting of Daniel Radcliffe. Not only he struggles a lot with the character because the script is a mess, but he doesn't even fit the role.

In spite of the weak script, Imperium still manages to do what it's supposed to do. Kinda. It gives an insight on (one of) the largest terrorism-related threats, the white supremacy movement (we are sadly hearing a lot about these days on the news), and it works decently as an eye opener. Still, it fails to be as powerful as other movies of the genre, like American History X. And that's frustrating because it really had potential.