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Catch Me If You Can is a wonderful, entertaining Spielberg
movie. It has light moments that are like perfect soap bubbles
and heavier moments that are affecting because they ring true
instead of bathing you in bathos. It doesn’t wink too much
at its audience, and it’s not yet another delivery system
for Spielbergian emotional excess. Who knows what stayed the
director’s hand here, but whatever it was, bless it. From
the opening animation that runs under the credits to the very
1960s-movie-music by John Williams to its evocation
of a much simpler time, the movie commits to the story it’s
telling.
That story is based on a book of the same name by Frank
Abagnale Jr., who stole millions of dollars through check
fraud and successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor,
and a lawyer, all before he was 19 years old. It’s a fantastic
story. Con artists who live by their wits rather than their
victims’ stupidity are fascinating—witness the success of
1959’s The Great Impostor, about conman Ferdinand
Demara, and the more recent TV show “The Pretender.”
Frank Jr. (DiCaprio) is a fortunate son as the movie
opens. His businessman father (Walken) is being honored
at a civic awards dinner. He and dad and his gorgeous mother
(Baye), the French war bride Frank Sr. brought home,
live in a big white house in New Rochelle (where Rob and Laura
Petrie live!) and ride in a big white car. And his parents
are an example of everything a married couple should be. They
enjoy each other’s company and they’re in love. There’s a
lovely scene, only slightly marred by excessive soft-focus,
of the senior Abagnales dancing together in the living room,
while their son, who’s clearly crazy about them, watches.
But murky tax problems bring the IRS into the Abagnales’ lives
and it all slips away. No more private school. No more Caddie.
A rented apartment. A mother who now receives visits from
a family friend in the middle of the day. Frank Jr. wants
his life back. He especially wants to get it all back for
his father, whom he adores. At 16, he leaves home, spurred
by the need to avoid choosing which parent to live with after
the divorce, and, well, he has to live somehow. Since he’s
a smart kid, why not live off of being smart? Like Moll Flanders,
Frank Jr. has that unquestioning drive to use whatever’s at
hand.
He starts small, by forging checks. But not forging in the
signing-someone-else’s-name sense. Forging in the manufacturing-bogus-payroll-checks
sense. And where does the enterprising young forger come by
the detailed information needed to succeed? He asks. He just
employs his natural charm and his polite home-raising to learn
what he needs, whether by flirtatiously chatting up a teller,
or by pretending to be a reporter for a high school newspaper.
And everybody is willing to give it up to him because, well,
he’s such a nice young man. Eventually he’s so successful
at check fraud that his activities attract the attention of
FBI Agent Hanratty (Hanks), a financial crimes specialist
who’s all about his job. The remainder of the movie is all
about the cat-and-mouse between Abagnale and Hanratty, and
the personal relationship that develops between them.
It may be difficult to believe Abagnale’s cons in these hardened
times. It’s barely credible that there was a time, not so
long ago, when people would provide all manner of information
if you were polite and curious, that even bank employees weren’t
habituated to react with suspicion to questions about bank
operations. Yet in a way, his successful cons are part of
the film’s good feeling. In days when the government can eyeball
our book purchases and library reading habits and use our
neighbors and cable guys to inform on our doings, who couldn’t
use a good caper movie about picking up information and using
it to individual advantage?
Abagnale keeps meeting clandestinely with his dad and trying
to give him lavish presents, which Frank Sr. must refuse,
due to the ongoing IRS oversight. To think “Christopher Walken,”
is to think “fine actor,” but restraint, tenderness, and poignancy
aren’t generally what come to mind. His performance here,
as a former big-fish-in-a-small-pond who’s now just another
working stiff, is so very moving. DiCaprio is very good as
the young grifter who likes the crazy money, but who also
just wants his family back like it was. Lest you think it’s
all about the father-son stuff, though, let me add that Catch
Me If You Can is dead funny. Tom Hanks’ FBI man is hilarious,
one of these tunnel-visioned geeks we’ve all had experience
of. Just watching him walk, even, was amusing, he was so deeply
in touch with his inner nerd. I had rather hoped that there’d
be no backstory on Hanratty, that he’d be free of a troublous
personal life and hidden motivations, but that, apparently,
was too hard to resist. It doesn’t detract too much, but I
have to take off points for that. It’s also fun to watch Martin
Sheen playing against type as a florid Southern lawyer
and pillar of New Orleans society.
It’s no giveaway that Abagnale was eventually caught, and
served some time. And then Hanratty, realizing that poachers
make the best gamekeepers, brought Frank Abagnale to the FBI,
to serve out his time using his skill and experience to help
catch paperhangers.
There are some great visuals in the movie. Scenes of parents
dancing together; a flying dollar bill, floating like that
feather in Forrest Gump. My favorite is the shadows
of the window blinds, like bars across Frank’s face as he
realizes what a prison an 8-to-5 job is. Today, Abagnale makes
a very comfortable living as a consultant to check security
companies.
This is pretty funny stuff. Not deathless cinema, but definitely
a good ROI for your $8.00. See how much fun we can have when
directors don’t swing for the fences?
— Roxanne Bogucka
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out of 5
While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video... 
