Is it 1980 again? Steve Spielberg makes a movie without overdone moralizing??

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2002)

This is a quality motion picture which suprises me because despite the questionable ending to Minority Report, thats 2 movies in a row that Stevie Hollywood hasn't over stuffed with sentimentality or kid-crap and therefore are good. Who knows if he can keep it up, but I imagine that he'll go out and make that Memoirs of a Geisha movie to offset the quality entertainment he's been making. Remember when the guy made Jaws, Close Encounters, Indiana Jones all in a row there? i dont cuz I wasn't born yet, but it musta been nice, because I grew up in him being all serious or having some underlying message to all his flicks. anyway...
I really liked Catch Me if You Can and I have no complaints at all about it actually. For a 2 hr 20 minute movie it moved at a lightening brisk pace, had genuinely funny moments and had a very logical and well written script that never confused me for a second.
Dicaprio plays Frank Abangale Jr., son of F.A. Sr. (Christopher "man's man" Walken) who before his 21st birthday managed to impersonate an airline pilot, doctor and lawyer and swindle his way, via forged checks , to more than 4 million dollars in loot. DiCaprio really was the only mainstream choice to play Frank Abangale in my opinion. Other than Tobey McGuire he's the only leading man with a marketable name that can play from 15 to 30 convincingly which is what the script requires him to do. And does he do it well, the kid is an actor, not that I've ever denied it, he was good in What's Eating Gilberts Grape and Basketball Diaries, but unfortunantly Titanic had to come along and make his sleepwalk performance in that what everyone remembers. (the same problem is with James Cameron, the guy made some AWESOME movies and Titanic is all he's gonna be remembered for)

Chasing DiCaprio's Abangale is Tom Hanks Carl Hanratty, one of the few FBI agents back in the 60's to deal in check forgery and have a west virginia (i presume it is, they never actually say) accent as think as his horn rimmed
glasses. Hanks does a damn good job here as well, as though there is really any chance he'd be bad, portraying Hanratty as a competant but timid agent early in the movie to an honorable and much more mature sleuth 3 or 4 years after he started following Abergale's paper trail.
The movie runs deftly from the early years of Frank Jr.s life, showing how his father also had the smooth talking gene and took his son along as he attempted to finesse his way out of problems with the IRS. The whole conflict between the father and the government being passed to the son is very cool, I was pleased when I realized how it had shaped up, it wasn't spelled out in some long winded explanation by anybody like a stupid movie would. Spielberg, while not being my favorite director anymore, has the clout and the confidence to be able to tell a story without spelling it out just so the dumber members in the audience get it. Over the course of the movie we see the toll that the cat and mouse game takes while showing that both guys are good people and not villians in any sense of the word. Being based on a true story helped give it credibility and makes one wish that they were half as suave and clever as frank was at 15 years old.

This movie is a different beast from most other Spielberg movies, its not a fantasy, or actioner, or sci fi, its just a story told very well without huge pretentions. It's just meant to entertain and show that in America a set of brains and a pair of balls will reward you in one way or another.

***3/4* (I didnt give it a perfect 4 stars becase I really don't have an urge to watch it again, but maybe over time I will)