I can't believe he actually got away with all of that

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2011)

This is a movie based upon a true story of a young con man who, in the space of a few short years, made millions of dollars cashing dodgy checks and passing himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and many other things as well. The movie is pits a determined FBI agent against this slippery criminal in an exposition of how hard it actually is to catch fraudsters. It is a very amusing movie, especially the scene where he walks into the French class of his new school and passes himself off as the teacher for an entire week (and he is able to do this because his mother, being French, has already taught him the language).
I'm not a big fan of Spielburg Movies, meaning that whenever he releases one I generally feign acknowledgement and then go off an do something much more interesting. Indeed I find most of his movies are either boring feel good movies (ET, Close Encounters) or simply movies demonstrating how wonderful he thinks he is. However, this movie was actually quite a surprise. It was funny, absorbing, and the characters were quite intriguing.
I remember when Tom Hanks was a comedy actor, though I would never put him in the same class of actors such as Eddie Murphy or the like. Once again, a lot of his old movies tended to be very light hearted feel good movies. However, he changed his direction with Philidelphia to more challenging roles. I can't say that this movie is one of those roles, since his character is very much like a cardboard cut out. However, this could simply be because the character that it is based upon is like that. He is an FBI agent that is determined to get his man and since he actually has nothing else for him (his wife left him) this is all that he has to define who he is.
De Caprio has actually come quite a long way. He definitely is no Brad Pitt, but a number of movies that he has been in (Inception for a start) are starting to catch my attention. However I am still ingrained with the concept of the teenie bopper heart throb that I suspect he never intended to become (particularly since The Basketball Diaries was one of his first movies). In this movie he also plays a character who is alone, however his loneliness does not arise from his dogged determination to succeed, but rather because he is always on the run. He cannot stop, and Hanks will not stop chasing him. This is not surprising because he is a crook, and the FBI will not let crooks (or at least the poor ones) escape. He is caught in the end, but the end actually provides a further twist. Still, I thought the whole enemies talking to each other on Christmas day, when both were alone, did emphasise the loneliness of both characters.