What fun!

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2003)

I truly enjoyed this film, not as anything significant or groundbreaking or fraught with deeper meaning. Oh no, I enjoyed it for what it was: A few hours of light, fun entertainment.
I typically don't care for DiCaprio, perhaps due to the vehicles in which he was delivered to the public. Such blockbuster efforts require its actors to look impressive, acting takes a back seat. Hanks seems to play the same core character in every movie, with brow furrowed or raised depending upon the needs of the script. Walken suffers the same affliction, but his offbeat delivery usually works in his favor.
My preconceptions made CMIYK that much more enjoyable when the principals in this film actually broke their molds. Here was Tom Hanks, the hardboiled G-man from birth. Here was Christopher Walken, the not-so-confident conman who almost always reaches the goal, or would if someone didn't keep moving that goalpost. And finally, Leonardo DiCaprio, a blueprint of the father he idolizes (and DiCaprio almost out-Walkens Walken here), a scheming engineer that takes the original idea and makes it "better".
Does it have a happy ending? Well, yes, just as it did for the real life person from which this film takes its story. I didn't see it as unrealistic because if there's one thing I've learned the hard way, it's that any good con man will always land on his feet.