Entertaining throughout

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2006)

Few directors can lay claim to as much diversity as Steven Spielberg  he's shown us every now and then with his ability to produce two films of starkly contrasting tone in the same calendar year. Most recently, 2005 saw Spielberg deliver the spectacular alien-invasion blockbuster War of the Worlds followed closely by the somber Best Picture nominee Munich. In 1993, it was the one-two punch of crowd-pleaser Jurassic Park and the uplifting Best Picture Schindler's List. 2002 was another year of achievement for Spielberg  after wowing audiences with the thought-provoking sci-fi thriller Minority Report, they were treated with the light-hearted, thoughtful, and endlessly fun Catch Me If You Can.
Set in the 1960's - in New York initially but spanning all the way out to France - Catch Me If You Can tells the tale (the film opens with "inspired by a true story") of Frank William Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), a fraudulent con artist who had successfully posed as a teacher, a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, stolen millions, and gotten away with it, all before his 19th birthday. Throughout the entire three-year episode, detective Carl Handratty (Tom Hanks) is the FBI agent who gives determined chase, setting up a cat-and-mouse affair where Frank always seems to be a step ahead, but who more than once offers to give himself up to the agent he forms an interesting dependence on over time.
What seems a simple premise is taken beyond that by a clever script and assured direction. The two leads are cast wonderfully, DiCaprio as the youthful con artist who seems to revel in the thrill of just getting away with things but who can in a moment snap into loneliness and yearning, and Hanks as the all-too-serious agent who loves to mess with Frank's mind. The supporting cast, too, give excellent turns but it's Christopher Walken who stands out as Frank Sr.- his sad, unfulfilled eyes speak tomes of the emotional struggle he's been through and the shaft that the law has treated him with. If there's a failing with the picture, it's the pacing during the opening sequences which establish the context of Frank Jr.'s situation - they seem to slow and weigh the movie down a little before it even kicks off proper with Frank Jr.'s first con. The closing sequences, too, serve as an epilogue that's a little bit unnecessary - Spielberg could have easily finished the film ten minutes earlier and audiences would not have been any less satisfied.
It would be a shame to finish the review without touching on the technical aspects, and it's here that Janusz Kaminski's brilliant photography seems to glitter in gold, combining with excellent costuming and John Williams' score (inspired by 60's Sinatra hits and James Bond-style cues) to give a believable, immersive sense of period. Indeed, perhaps what makes Catch Me If You Can so effective is the supreme sense of amusement and fun it seems to have been made with, and that is something that's directly channeled on to the audience. There's no heavy, resonant story here that delivers an important message, but where Spielberg succeeds is in not trying to: it's a cop-and-crook flick that simply excels as entertainment, even if it's a tad on the long side for the scope of the story it covers.