Overview
Nate Foster, a young, idealistic FBI agent, goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group. The bright up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while maintaining his real principles as he navigates the dangerous underworld of white supremacy. Inspired by real events.
Yes that skinhead on the movie poster was once Harry Potter. In Imperium Daniel Radcliffe finds himself amongst an altogether different kind of Grand Wizards. Seeing him giving nazi salutes in White Power gear is quite a change – and more importantly, he pulls it off.
Nate Foster (Radcliffe) is a young FBI agent with little field experience, but his boss Angela Zamparo (Toni Colette) believes he is the right guy to infiltrate a white supremacy extremist faction. And so he does, and he works his way in, through and up from a group of loudmouthed skinheads, on to the Aryan Alliance, and further up the white supremacy chain to the KKK.
This high up they may look and act less like loudmouthed skinheads, but their true beliefs and influence are much more dangerous and scary, and the movie succeeds in delivering enough of that unnerving message.
The plot is a bit clunky at times, especially in the beginning – the infiltration and going up the chain is all a bit all too easy and the movie doesn’t manage to convey a sense of time: surely one cannot infiltrate and get close to multiple leaders of different factions in a matter of days, weeks or even months. By skipping over this the movie feels less credible, compounded by a few scenes where Nate is at risk of getting exposed, which are just a bit too light. But as the movie progresses and Nate gets deeper involved, Daniel Radcliffe carries the movie and delivers a commendable performance.
Imperium is worth seeing for Radcliffe’s leading role, as well as serving as a reminder that white supremacy is alive and kicking, and scarily well connected at all echelons of US society.
★★★
