Hype-powered (slight spoiler)

Rating: 6/10 (1 January 2003)

The performances are good. Christopher Walken is himself, and even when he's sympathetic, he's odd. The movie looks clean. But for a caper/con movie, it's very slow.
(Spoiler) Also, the movie suffers from the typical neat Spielberg coda where "Poof! Now he's happily married and a millionaire!" Kind of like Mike Milken, Ivan Boesky and (soon to be) Enron, Adelphia and WorldCom figures who bilk little people for millions, serve almost no time, and come out ready to restart with all their cronies. I'm all for redemption, but without the context of the interceding years, this amounts to glamorizing grand theft and fraud. I'm sure the facts are true, but they didn't belong in the movie. Unless the director is making an expensive lesson advising his (and my) children that crime can pay if you're just clever enough.