Another boy who makes believe

Rating: 5/10 (7 August 2011)

"Spielberg is both politically backward (liberal, that is, rather than radical, reaching, humane) and, like his nut-job U.S. president, totally bereft of curiosity. [] He remains enraptured by respectability, orthodoxy and the status quo. It's doubtful that enlightenment will ever strike him." - Dennis Grunes
Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" opens with a stylised credit sequence, a homage to Saul Bass and the caper/con/heist/spy/Pink-Panther/Saint movie credits of the 1960s. What follows is Spielberg's version of Tony Curtis' "The Great Imposter" and Wendell Harris' "Chameleon Street", though here our hero is teen-aged con-man Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio), an emotionally wounded kid who lies to others as a means of escaping the lies he tells himself.
All of Spielberg's pros and cons are on display. Moments of sexuality, romance and swearing ring awkward or false, the film's comedy is clunky, all female characters are whores, bimbos, nitwits or betrayers, the terrifying, darker aspects of "real-life Frank" are ignored and the film's last act is bloated. Spielberg cheats with some of the images as well, using postcard pictures, fancy clothes, an animated intro, chirpy music, cutesy nods to Truffaut and slick montages to convey an impression of either fun or loneliness. It's all very mechanical. A collection of references rather than anything substantial.
Though it aims for a breezy tone, the film's start-stop narrative is more a collection of vignettes. Spielberg's camera also rarely conveys a sense of true three dimensional space, and like "Minority Report", one is always aware that there is nothing, no space, no landscape, beyond the edges of each sound stage, each set-piece, each street corner or those blazing shafts of white light which seem to cordon off each sequence. Watch, for example, how small the film's street scenes are, or how closed off its airport sequences feel. With Spielberg, there's never anything beyond the set piece, a facet which he tried to rectify with "The Terminal" (where space and architecture become the lead character).
Still, there's a lot of great stuff on display. DiCaprio's fantasy world is infectious, Spielberg clearly having fun as DiCaprio does likewise. Forging cheques, playing make-believe, living a fantasy life, these are all things which appeal to Spielberg. The film's "real human drama" is also handled much better here than elsewhere in Spielberg's filmography, and unlike most con-man movies ("The Sting", "Ocean's Eleven" etc), Spielberg always stresses the pain (see "California Split") underlying each of DiCaprio's flights into white-collar fantasy (though DiCaprio's victims are given no voice). This is the post "A.I." Spielberg, the film-maker increasingly suspicious of himself and his art.
If one ignores "ET", "Catch Me" is perhaps Spielberg's most autobiographical film (the director famously conned his way into, or rather conned us into believing that he conned his way into, a Universal Studios lot). All Spielberg's neuroses are presented (ie, a kid hiding in the fantasy world of cinema/con-artistry because his parents are divorcing), before the film eventually climaxes with Frank joining the FBI and using his powers of lying, forgery and imagination (aka his sweet film-making skills) for the "greater good" of America. The film then ends with title cards which inform us that Frank stopped thousands of criminals, raised a large family (all sons!) and became a millionaire by creating unforgeable cheques. It's Spielberg's own trajectory from little Jewish outcast to millionaire do-goods-man, his filmography untouchable, unforgeable, but built on lies and forgery.
Some cite the film as a critique of the "American ethos", white collar America, and the hollow drive to "please the father", "get top jobs" and "be all you can be". But what the film really exemplifies is Spielberg's brand of confused, liberal humanism. The film's French authorities may be brutally indifferent, but America lets Americans act out, then, like a good daddy, rehabilitates them and brings them back home. FBI agent Tom Hanks, Frank's surrogate daddy, is after-all not a big mean G-man, but just another wounded guy looking for a son of his own. If daddy and son work and dream together, everyone will prosper.
In this regard, Frank's motivations are completely ignored by Spielberg, who attribute them solely to "divorce". In reality, Frank's criminality stemmed from his father's own predicaments at the hands of the state (his inability to "turn cream into butter", as he says in the film), predicaments which led to real-life Frank noticing the disparity between America's economic reality and its empty promises of success through "unceasing hard work". What Spielberg's film does is bashfully circle around this truth before presenting the opposite. Here, Frank's flights aren't a means of debarring his father's problems but of overcompensating for his father's failings as a scheming businessman, failings which Frank believes caused his evil wench of a mother to leave daddy. Work hard, be smarter and cleverer than daddy, and mommy won't leave. But remember to do this within the boundaries of the state, the law, otherwise you won't make millions and have a cool job and big family. The film's goody-goody conservatism, which a better director would have pushed to parody, is epitomised by a series of conversations towards its ending when Frank reiterates that he "didn't cheat", that he "studied and worked hard" and "passed all his bar exams". In other-words, selfishly conning people only sidetracked our hard working, talented Frank from his true potential, from America's true "rugged individualism", true nature, and true work ethic. And if you do this as well, if you're an imaginative little guy who works within the boundaries like Frank/Spielberg, you too can be a zillion dollar high flier. Meanwhile, the film completely ignores the contempt con artists ordinarily have for their victims, for humanity in general, that pool of all-too-eager suckers.
7.9/10 – Worth three viewings. (This review has been repeatedly deleted by user "bbarash", a disgruntled Spielberg fan, for being "offensive". This is my backup account. Link to original account: http://www.imdb.com/user/ur4130201/comments )