Catch Me If You Can
Zowie, man! Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Catch Me If You Can, is a fun, comedic crime caper, marveling at the tradecraft of forgery rather than denouncing it. Its spirit is breezy, almost whimsical in it’s tone, and it elevates its main character, Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) to the level of a highly successful artist. Yes, it’s true he did steal cumulatively $4.5 million, but he had fun doing it, and is there really anything wrong with that? And who wouldn’t envy Frank? He’s an “airline pilot”, a “doctor”, a “lawyer”, and, in one of the funniest segments, attempts to be James Bond, all before he turns 21. If you’re having fun and living the high-life, what’s wrong with a little check forgery, especially when you’re wearing a smashing orange and white Italian knit shirt sweater combo?
Well, there’s one man, Carl Hanratty, who doesn’t think any of this malarkey is funny, not one bit, and is the party pooper FBI agents who’s going to bring Frank to justice. He is also one of the most cheerless and miserable FBI agents in the history of cinema. Yeah, his men may not like him very much, but Carl couldn’t care less what they think because he has the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation at his disposal. One thing can be said for Carl, he’ll get his man, even if it takes him four years and criss-crossing between two continents to do it.
Frank is a man who’s wrestled life to the ground by its horns and claimed it for himself. After his parents (Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye) divorce, Frank flees his familial problems and heads for the Big Apple to find his fortune. Boy meets world and before you know it he’s broke, homeless and it attempting to kite checks. He quickly realizes that portraying the broke student fails to gain the trust of wary bank tellers, and after an epiphany hits him he takes on the appearance of a Pan-Am airline pilot, because, as everybody knows, you can trust a pilot! Soon he’s swimming in cash and flying the jump seat of airliners across the country, all the while cashing bogus checks. Each time Hanratty is close to capturing him, Frank deftly moves on to a new, cooler job.
Starring:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye
Directed By:
Steven Spielberg
Release Date:
December 25, 2002
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for for some sexual content and brief language.
Distributors:
DreamWorks SKG
3.5 Stars
The major flaw with this film is surprisingly enough Tom Hanks’ character Hanratty. The writing, not the portrayal that is. The FBI man is so cardboard and two– dimensional that it could have been played by literally anyone else. Hanratty isn’t the main focus of the story, but it would have been nice to see a more rounded adversary for the dapper Abagnale to pit wits against, rather than the stereotypical hard-ass cop who sits alone at the office, expecting phone calls from his prey, anticipating moves like in a game of chess.
Spielberg however makes up for this by keeping the film’s mood light, allowing the bubbly personality of DiCaprio to carry the film through points that would have been dull in the hands of others. He handles the comedy well, staying at a shallow level, rarely delving into the mechanics of the forgeries. In the hands of other directors this might have become tedious but Spielberg keeps things moving at a speedy pace. The camera work of Janusz Kaminski is bright and alive, primary colors jumping off of the screen, swimming around in a big old pool of nostalgia and accentuating the upbeat times of the early 1960’s. In the end, it’s almost hard to turn away, the film is so watchable it’s infectious.