Light and entertaining, not well-crafted

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2002)

*Sigh*. I used to love all of Spielberg's work. Even though some of them were sentimental (E.T., The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun), they stayed within the realm of the believable and seemed magical. These days, he seems to want to try to stretch creatively, and sadly this film doesn't quite cut it. NOTE: POSSIBLE SPOILERS.
"Catch Me If You Can" was light and entertaining, but flat. It lacked the "wink wink" charm of a good con story where you can root for the conman, like "The Sting" or even the recent "Ocean's Eleven". Without that charm this movie would have to rely on believability, which was missing. The few meaty, believable moments were those between DiCaprio and Walken in the father-son scenes. (And possibly a few brief moments between Frank's would-be in-laws, showing him what a happy marriage looks like.) The audience is asked to believe that with just good looks and a uniform, you can get away with anything. Especially the bizarre scene with Jennifer Garner. (I agree with an earlier comment, if this was pure fiction, it wouldn't hold up at all!)
Hanks' straight-arrow detective is too two-dimensional, and his accent never stayed in place. Also, it's never explained just why and how Frank figured out the checking systems, the paper, etc. of his fraudulent activity. (How he went from getting free flights to large-scale bank fraud.)

And then in the end, his whole motivation for everything is to try and get his parents back together? What?!? I understand that he's only sixteen, but how about that he enjoyed the thrill of getting away with crime as a motivation? The scene at the end where Frank is looking in the window wistfully at his happy mother was bordering on soap opera level sappiness. And this scene went on WAYYYY too long. (I've made this comment before about his recent work, specifically in AI...no one on his team is telling him he needs to do more judicious editing!) On that note, the editing and timing overall were off...this didn't flow well as a story.
This is very very light entertainment, but I certainly expected more craft from Spielberg. Is he getting complacent? Once again, I'm disappointed.