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Catch Me If You Can
****
Cinema
Reviews - Week of January 31, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12A. USA.
141 minutes. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Jeff Nathanson; from
the book by Frank Abagnale Jr., Stan Redding. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye, Amy Adams, James
Brolin.
This movie got me grinning. So much, and for such
a sustained amount of time, that afterward my face felt a little sore, and
I wondered if maybe wrinkles had set in. The hero is not exactly a virtuous
guy, but that's not the point -- we laugh with him because there's a part
of us that cannot help be entertained by the sight of someone getting away
with something.
"Catch Me If You Can" is the true
story of Frank Abagnale Jr, who ran away from home at the age of sixteen
and spent the next few years as a doctor, lawyer, airline pilot and generally
flash outlaw. He handed out bad cheques from a real bank account before
eventually just making his own, and before hitting twenty-one had scammed
various companies out of somewhere in the region of three million
dollars.
There is a certain satisfaction to be gotten from
watching the con artist -- not in real life, maybe, but for sure in drama,
where he tends to be a charming rogue, stealing from corporations rather
than people, living the high life the easy way and pulling off whoppers that
most of us would never dare to try. Frank is played by Leonardo DiCaprio
as a kid with fresh-faced magnetism and a confident wink, who models his
fantasy life after the style of James Bond and uses his skills of deception
to work in envied professions, drink Martinis, drive Cadillacs and get laid.
Watching the wild ride is like wish fulfilment.
One of the DiCaprio character's driving forces
is the bankruptcy and divorce of his father (Christopher Walken), who he
would like to make happy with his success, and his challenge is the FBI agent
on his trail (Tom Hanks). DiCaprio's boyishness is used to full effect here
-- he's convincing as a good-looking lad thinking what the hell and going
on adventures, but also as a kid out of his depth. There is poignancy in
the scenes with Walken, not least when we reflect that this is a film by
Steven Spielberg, who has gone on record many times about the effect of his
parents' break-up. And while Hanks serves mainly as a duped comic counterpoint
to DiCaprio's ingenious games, an emotional thread develops here too. Hanks
becomes fixated, and DiCaprio likes the idea of evading a skilled pursuer,
and yet this isn't just a case of a cat-and-mouse game that turns into connection
and respect. The agent spends so much time on the case that he grows to feel
protective, and the kid ends up so lonely that after a while the only thing
he can rely on is the knowledge that the feds are still
interested.
The movie runs for 141 minutes, but it's not big
and heavy. It bobs through comedy and drama with a breezy, bouncy, cunning
sense of fun, and it recreates the 1960s and '70s with bright colours, humming
glow, and a soundtrack of swish jazz and swing. Spielberg is not known for
comedy, and the quick schedule of this production leads me to suspect that
he didn't care about it all that much. But maybe it's the best thing for
him. He has been reaching for epic proportions in most of his recent movies,
and they've been impressive, but also kinda strained, and lacking in the
rhythm of his classics. "Catch Me If You Can" is a minor masterpiece -- it
doesn't have obvious weight, complex special effects or a flurry of images
that are bound to become essential movie moments. It has simple appeal, exploited
and made resonant to the fullest degree by the expert ease of a
genius.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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