Spielberg does Soderberg...

Rating: 3/10 (28 December 2002)

and the results are deadly: a technically flawless but self-righteous, humorless film maker, he is utterly incapable of embracing the joy of this cat-and-mouse chase, much less, appreciating the delicious irony of Abagnale's post-conviction life. Ironically, the usually-bombastic (and equally self-righteous) John Williams manages to reign himself in; his score was such a surprise, I though someone else had done it.
Although DiCaprio tries mightily, Abagnale remains a selfish punk not worthy of our sympathy. He lets his father, for whom he launches his crime spree, drown in debt while he makes off with suitcases stuffed with cash. That Sr. has no problem claiming to be a Medal of Honor winner in a pathetic attempt to secure a loan tells us he wasn't above accepting "help" from Jr.
Which leads us to Hanratty, who is not only self-righteous and humorless, but mean. He takes a perverse joy in telling Jr. what happened to Sr. And he wonders why Jr. escapes from the plane!
The ER scene should have been written thusly: Jr. storms in like a general, talks to Mom while examining/comforting the boy, respectfully asks the interns for their diagnosis, forces himself to soak up the blood from the wound (which we get a gratuitous close-up of) while trying desperately not to pass out! That would not only have been funny, it would have displayed Abagnale's moxie and pluck. Instead, I found myself hoping he'd rot in jail.
When Jr. is given a bogus check by the FBI agents, he notes that the paper is not perforated. Since we never learn how he mastered making bogus checks or obtained the tools needed, we must assume that he wasn't working with paper that wasn't perforated, either! How this minor detail got past the "experts" at the FBI (and Spielberg) is not for us lesser minds to ponder.