This isn't from Amblin Entertainment for nothing...

Rating: Null/10 (26 April 2003)

"Catch Me If You Can" is a good change of pace for Steven Spielberg, who hasn't done a lighthearted movie like this in a long time - after "Minority Report," "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" and "Saving Private Ryan," a smaller-scale, factually-based tale would be just the thing. But while no one can possibly call this a bad movie, ultimately it's a bit too light for its own good.
It does show how far good actors and a top director can take an uneven screenplay - and since Frank Abangale's book about his exploits as a real-life Great Pretender is adapted by the man who also did "Rush Hour 2" and "Speed 2: Cruise Control," it is pretty uneven. Luckily for us all, Leonardo DiCaprio and company take it almost to the finish; going from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, our hero Frank starts to fake it when his parents (Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye) have their house repossessed en route to getting divorced, going from pretending to being the substitute French teacher to posing as a Pan Am pilot, and taking it from there. You watch it wondering how far he can go before getting caught, and how he will get caught, and what'll happen then...
The story is played for laughs for the most part, but it's handled with so that you never feel it shouldn't be or that he's doing it out of larceny; from the animated opening credits onwards the movie keeps skipping along, but it also takes itself a bit too easy - no sensation that the Fed pursuing him is actually chasing him, and not enough time to build up the people Frank meets along the way, apart from Frank's father. Thank heaven for Spielberg's ability to use actors who can make up for it, like Martin Sheen as the father of the sweet Southern girl (Amy Adams) who our hero comes close to marrying, and Jennifer Garner in a cameo as a model-turned-prostitute who winds up unknowingly paying our hero to have sex with her (some of us would do it for free).
"Catch Me If You Can" also has lots of wonderful little moments like our hero getting crash courses in medicine and law from "Dr. Kildare" and "Perry Mason" respectively, and Handratty (Tom Hanks)'s knock-knock joke; as with many movies set in the 1960s it also fills the soundtrack with songs from that era, and though some are questionably chosen (Frank and Cheryl (Jennifer Garner) meet up with Dusty Springfield's "The Look Of Love" playing to set the mood, even though the year is 1964 and the song didn't come out until 1967) they're still good listening, but don't upstage John Williams's score - which, though it's been overpraised by all too many movie critics, probably because it's not loud, is still impressively light a la a lot of his 60s work.
The trouble with the movie in the end, however, is... well... the end. It seems to run on for about 20 or so minutes after its natural end, and ultimately just seems to tail off. The movie's likeable and absorbing, but in the end it's no more than a pleasant diversion. But why pick on Spielberg et al for not producing heavyweight movies all the time? As far as cinematic journeys to the 1960s go, it's worth seeing, especially for fans of the cast and director. It's just a shame it doesn't linger long.