Showman PT Barnum famously once said: "There's a sucker born every minute" ... and this maxim never had more truth than for hoaxer Ray Santilli - the man who released the original 'alien autopsy' film footage onto an unsuspecting world. While clearly as phony as one of Derek Acorah's "spiritual possessions" on Most Haunted, people believed it because they wanted to.
Ray's tale is now retold on the big screen with Newcastle's finest - Ant and Dec - taking the lead roles of Ray (Dec) and his best friend Gary (Ant). Ray has always stuck to his guns and claimed that the footage was genuine, until now - conveniently timing his "re-imagining" of events to coincide with the release of the film that he and Gary have executively produced.
The story - as told in the light-hearted drama Alien Autopsy - goes that pirate video trader and general conman Ray went off to the States, with Gary, to buy up home movies of Elvis for resale in the UK, but ended up meeting an Air Force cameraman who showed him what he claimed was genuine footage from an alien autopsy shot in Roswell after the famous UFO crash.
However, by the time Ray got the money together to buy the film, and got it back home, it had eroded so much that it was unwatchable. So he then hit on the idea of "restaging" what he claimed to have seen and passing his film off as the genuine article. And the rest is history ...
Ant and Dec's film is surprisingly entertaining and thought provoking, relying as it does on that old storytelling favourite: the unreliable narrator (for better examples see The Usual Suspects or Fight Club), as Ray and Gary recount their adventures to documentary maker Bill Pullman.
It's not the laugh-out-loud, slapstick that one might expect from Britain's premiere light entertainers, but a quite straight recounting of the manufacture of a global-scale hoax - with only a light sprinkling of hilarity. I suspect the real Ray and Gary may have had a hand in keeping the tone semi-serious, so as not to show them in too bad a light.
Nevertheless, this is a film I can highly recommend. It's good natured, funny and reasonably family friendly (mild sex references and fake alien goo aside). The story doesn't quite hang together and the interesting twist ending feels slightly tacked on (perhaps in an attempt to milk the hoax for a few more dollars), but Ant and Dec do themselves proud and if nothing else it's one of those films where it's fun to play spot the cameo.
Ray's tale is now retold on the big screen with Newcastle's finest - Ant and Dec - taking the lead roles of Ray (Dec) and his best friend Gary (Ant). Ray has always stuck to his guns and claimed that the footage was genuine, until now - conveniently timing his "re-imagining" of events to coincide with the release of the film that he and Gary have executively produced.
The story - as told in the light-hearted drama Alien Autopsy - goes that pirate video trader and general conman Ray went off to the States, with Gary, to buy up home movies of Elvis for resale in the UK, but ended up meeting an Air Force cameraman who showed him what he claimed was genuine footage from an alien autopsy shot in Roswell after the famous UFO crash.
However, by the time Ray got the money together to buy the film, and got it back home, it had eroded so much that it was unwatchable. So he then hit on the idea of "restaging" what he claimed to have seen and passing his film off as the genuine article. And the rest is history ...
Ant and Dec's film is surprisingly entertaining and thought provoking, relying as it does on that old storytelling favourite: the unreliable narrator (for better examples see The Usual Suspects or Fight Club), as Ray and Gary recount their adventures to documentary maker Bill Pullman.
It's not the laugh-out-loud, slapstick that one might expect from Britain's premiere light entertainers, but a quite straight recounting of the manufacture of a global-scale hoax - with only a light sprinkling of hilarity. I suspect the real Ray and Gary may have had a hand in keeping the tone semi-serious, so as not to show them in too bad a light.
Nevertheless, this is a film I can highly recommend. It's good natured, funny and reasonably family friendly (mild sex references and fake alien goo aside). The story doesn't quite hang together and the interesting twist ending feels slightly tacked on (perhaps in an attempt to milk the hoax for a few more dollars), but Ant and Dec do themselves proud and if nothing else it's one of those films where it's fun to play spot the cameo.