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Catch Me If You Can
(Reviewed December 10, 2002, by James Dawson)
-
Spielberg blew it. What should have been (and what is being advertised as) a breezy '60s-retro bon-bon turns out to have more in common with "Minority Report" than with "Austin Powers." At a whopping two hours and 20 minutes, it's a flight of fancy with wings of lead. (Although I've gotta admit, it does include the funniest "knock-knock" joke of all time.)
Let's put it this way: That great Leo-with-gaggle-of-giggling-stewardesses scene from the trailer definitely does NOT give an accurate impression of the overall movie's tone, or even its look. What you're expecting is a cheerfully on-the-run Ferris Bueller con artist, not a broken-home runaway who has issues with his hollow-eyed failure of a father (the bizarrely miscast Christopher Walken) and his cheatin'-with-Dad's-best-friend mother. Tom Hanks, with a comes-and-goes Ted Kennedy accent, is such an earnest-but-hapless FBI agent that he seems to have dropped in from a much more lighthearted movie--the one "Catch Me If You Can" should have been, in fact. Even the cinematography is bleak, sometimes looking like 16mm blown up to 35mm and left in a vault to deteriorate since the '60s.
The most basic thing that is wrong with the movie is that Leonardo DiCaprio simply looks too young to be believable in any of his assumed-identity occupations (French teacher, airline pilot, doctor, lawyer) in a movie that is trying to go more for realism than for yucks. I realize this is a paradox, since the real-world Leo actually is 28 (surprised, huh?)...but he obviously has been cast because he looks far younger than his years, which defeats the whole purpose of his role. (I don't think his character could order a drink without getting carded, much less impersonate a commercial jet pilot without anyone raising an eyebrow.) The real-world man he portrays, on the other hand, actually looked much OLDER than his teens, which helped him pull off his scams.
The movie also suffers from "inspired by a true story"-itis, which keeps raising "I wonder if that really happened?" questions that undermine the whole enterprise. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If somebody's life story is compelling enough to be optioned for a movie, does it really need screwing with by some Hollywood hack to amp up the drama? (Case in point: One "Catch Me If You Can" character is a non-existent composite, which makes the claim at the end that he is "still close friends to this day" with another of the movie's characters sort of ridiculous.)
"Catch Me If You Can" has an interesting premise, but it's not the movie you'll wish it was. Surprise, you just got conned out of eight bucks by a downbeat drama impersonating a freewheeling fugitive flick. How appropriate!
Back Row Grade: C-
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