Unseen Cruelty

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2005)

Steven Spielberg has a style, a straight forward telling of a story. There is something middle class and suburban about his films. The temperament of the protagonists, their concerns is essentially middle-class whether the actors are soldiers of D Day or doomed Jews of Europe; their world, the well-to-do burgher world has crumbled. He doesn't write these scripts, but he certainly puts his stamp on them.
DiCaprio is very convincing, playing a teen, and then in turn, playing an older man whether doctor or pilot. I think that is a neat trick. I've always thought that actors are the weirdest of all artists and possibly the dumbest in real life, but I digress. Christopher Walken plays the failed businessman-father with the heart of a gentle con. The son takes the con part and leaves behind the gentle. His mother is an opportunist, a French war bride, so when things go wrong, she moves on without a lot of thought or feeling for the men in her life. DiCaprio is attracted to criminality, a "Paper Hanger," living in the swinging late 60's with a suitcase full of ill-gotten cash. Tom Hanks, the stodgy FBI man is on his trail, but the boy is just too fast. He can only be caught if he wants to be caught. I digress again. Mr. Spielberg is not Alfred Hitchcock, but he learned a lot from watching Hitch's work. Keep the plot moving by the illusion of unseen cruelty, the shaking chandelier or invisible shark. Hitchcock fans know what I mean.