Catch me another 100 million

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2003)

If I hadn't known that Steven Spielberg, the most financially successful bad director Hollywood has produced, had directed this movie, it wouldn't have taken me long to guess. There is a certain sticky sweetness, a sunniness of mood that is vintage Spielberg and which sits uneasily with the theme of crime and punishment. Not that Frank Abagnale Jr was a particularly vicious criminal, but here cheque fraud is portrayed as being nice clean crime, and we find ourselves wanting to see Frank get away with it, and make his FBI pursuer Carl Hanratty look even more of a bumblefoot than he is already. There is something rather manipulative about a movie that has us cheering the bad guy. Well, I guess not even Steve Spielberg, rich as he is, likes banks, and the nice thing about cheque fraud is that it usually the bank that loses, not the customer.
That said, this a very watchable entertainment. The 1960s are beautifully evoked, not only through the décor, cars, manners and clothes, but in the accurate portrayal of air travel as the height of glamour and sophistication. Pam American and TWA were almost institutions; alas they did not survive deregulation and the proletarianisation of the air travel market.
Leonardo Di Caprico, though in his late 20s, is a slightly pudgy, pretty sort of guy and gets away with portraying the precocious teenage Frank. Appropriately it is a charming performance though he does not have a big range. Tom Hanks as Carl glowers a lot and eats a lot of bad food, but I found it hard to evoke a lot of sympathy for him. With the resources the FBI had at its disposal Frank's capture should have taken weeks, not years. But then it would not have been such a good story, one which is made more intriguing by the relationship between Frank and his father, an unsuccessful business man (nicely played by Christopher Walken). Frank learned a lot about the con man's game from his Dad, though Dad lacked the audacity Frank displays. Frank's relationship with his mother (elusively played by Nathalie Baye) is also explored, but in a perfunctory way.
It's a lengthy movie, 2 hours 20 minutes and it does drag a bit. The 'happy ending' is anti-climactic, though I can well believe it took some time to actually get Frank working for the FBI. And he's never left! Must be the pension plan.
WARNING: SPOILER. At one point in the proceedings Carl asks Frank how he managed to cheat his way through the Louisiana bar exam, which Frank passed despite not having a law degree (he was only 18). Frank refuses to say. Later, we learn what happened  Frank crammed for two weeks and passed the exam on his merits. This is perfectly explicable. Bar exams cover basic black letter law which merely has to be parroted back to satisfy the examiners. Some maintain that to have a law degree from a decent school is a positive disability to passing bar exams. Most law graduates sign up for a cramming course for the particular bar exam they wish to do. Maybe Frank did the same.