Fantastic true-story, lousy movie

Rating: 4/10 (12 January 2003)

This fascinating story & fantastic cast are wasted in this sloppy self-indulgent slice of "Shpielberg." A hack script, Halmark-inspired score and sloppy editing render this potentially gripping movie slightly below average even as brainless entertainment. After a promising turn towards artistry and adrenaline in Minority Report, Spielberg seems to have slid back to his comfort zone of shlocky emotionally manipulative made-for-tv crapolla. While the moral ambiguity and basic plot are nonetheless interesting, seeing the stellar performances by Christopher Walken, Tom Hanks, and Leonardo DiCaprio (--who, despite a slight air of inappropriate cynicism seems to have finally recovered from his Titanic fame and returned to his roots as an emotionally gripping actor--) and the absolutely fascinating true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. rendered into 24 carat shlock is a truly unforgivable con-job. With a trendy wave to non-linear narrative Spielberg also guts the movie of any adrenaline value by revealing the outcome of the story in the first three minutes of film. In perhaps the greatest travesty of all, the natural humor of the story is exploited to the extent that it is about as subtle as a fart in an elevator.