Sit Through Me If You Can!

Rating: Null/10 (7 January 2003)

Catch Me If You Can: Once again Steven Spielberg manages to take an interesting story and turn it into a deeply boring movie. Based on the autobiography of a confidence man who turned check kiting into a bona fide art form, this movie not only doesn't elevate the material, it leaves you longing for a return to the "To Tell The Truth" tv clip that opens the movie, because at least that format contains a smidgen of suspense.

As for the cast, Christopher Walken, in a supporting role as the protagonist's father, succeeds, as usual, in engaging us briefly, but even his inspired hoofing can't bust through the 2 hour 20 minute wall of stunningly empty visuals and bland dialogue. Tom Hanks, playing the FBI agent that pursues our hero/antihero, spices up his usual cranky bureaucrat character with an interesting accent! Merci, Herr Hanks! Leonardo DiCaprio...well...was this guy ever good? Seriously, what was he good in? And don't say "Gilbert Grape", 'cause nine years is a long time to coast on a heartwarming portrayal of a hydrocephalic. Not that it hasn't be tried many, many times in Hollywood.
Spielberg's direction is snappy and devoid of life. His characters get let off the hook all too easily. I couldn't tell if the protagonist's romance was shallow and unconvincing because he's a con man, or because, well, it's a Steven Spielberg movie. And the script is surprisingly bad, adorned as it is with every predictable device, and relying as it does on a series of emotional "gotchas" that bounce off with no discernable impact. Not at all what you would expect from a writer whose credits include Speed 2 AND Rush Hour 2. I hope Frank Abagnale got a lot of money in return for seeing his life turned into earnest, awful pablum.