entertaining, if minor, Spielberg

Rating: Null/10 (6 January 2003)

From childhood on, we are taught that honesty is a virtue and dishonesty a vice. We have that message pounded into our heads and branded into our psyches by parents and teachers, by law enforcers and lawmakers, by clergymen and civic leaders. Yet, at the same time, society as a whole, especially in our entertainment, has always had a certain soft spot for the scoundrel and the rogue, a kind of running love affair with the con man, the shyster, the rascal who can pull the wool over everyone's eyes and get away with it. It is this paradox of human nature that Steven Spielberg celebrates in `Catch Me if You Can,' the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr., the huckster supreme who, at the incredible age of 17, left home and family, and managed to pass himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer and to swindle the banks out of millions of dollars in bad checks into the bargain.
If the film didn't say that it was based on a true story, no one would ever believe it, so absurd and unlikely is its premise. The story certainly proves that old adage that fact is indeed stranger than fiction. In many ways, `Catch Me if You Can' is essentially a lighthearted, comic version of `Les Miserables' (or `The Fugitive' if you prefer), with Tom Hanks as the Javert-like Carl Hanratty, a by-the-book FBI agent who becomes personally obsessed with bagging this one particular lawbreaker, who somehow manages to deftly evade his every attempt at capture. For Hanratty, apprehending Frank becomes the quest that gives his life meaning and purpose, the focal point of his existence. Hanks does a splendid job capturing the deadpan seriousness of this single-minded but constantly put-upon individual, never allowing him to become a mere buffoon or caricature as he might have become in less capable hands. Leonardo Di Caprio does a first rate job turning Frank into a world-class charmer. We understand how so many people could allow themselves to be duped by his charismatic personality. And it is nice to see Christopher Walken NOT playing a creepy villain for a change, but rather a father who loves his son but who simply can't find it within himself to be either a successful person in his own right or a moral role model for his boy to follow.
Spielberg does a fine job pointing up the parallels between Frank and Carl, the lawbreaker and the law enforcer. Despite the fact that they are antipodes apart on the legal spectrum, both are living lives of loneliness and emptiness, and they develop a strange sort of camaraderie on that basis. For one thing Frank learns is that, although he may be able to dupe people into believing all sorts of untruths about him and live high in the process, there is no substitution for the real things in life like love, marriage and family that money cannot buy.
`Catch Me if You Can,' though it is a very entertaining film, ultimately feels a trifle incomplete, as if it were lacking just that touch of depth that would make it truly outstanding. It's fun on the surface, but it never seems to dig much beneath that surface. Perhaps, it is in the nature of the story itself that the trouble lies. Once we catch on to the novelty of the plot, the story doesn't really seem to have anywhere to go except to keep showing us the same thing over and over again. For all the bravura performances, the characters never quite show us what makes them tick. This is particularly true of Frank, whose motives remain obscure throughout most of the film. Oh well. `Catch Me if You Can' is intended primarily as a lark, I imagine, and on that level it is generally successful.
This latest film certainly does not rank up there in the Spielberg pantheon. It is, in fact, a minor work by a major filmmaker, who is merely marking time, perhaps, till his next true masterwork. It's Spielberg in a relaxed, kick back, sunny mood, not as great as when he is really pumping away hard, but good enough for the time being.