Slick Slight-of-Hand

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2003)

Steven Spielberg says that his initial impression of the massive con job pulled by Frank Abagnale, Jr. was that it was all one big "slight-of-hand" trick - no substance, no profound evil, just somebody wanting to see how fast and how loose they can play with the system.
So Spielberg does about the only appropriate thing in bringing Abagnale's story to the screen: his movie itself is an artsy, slick slight-of-hand trick. It is as full of rich color, extensive detail, and beautiful decorum as anything Spielberg has ever done. I don't know if the movie is supposed to be "about" anything, even accounting for the obvious scenes where Spielberg tries to hash out his strange ideas of fatherhood. He has skipped his really relevant issues in favor of a shooting-the-breeze approach - encapsulated by the fact that shooting wrapped in only 52 days, manic speed for a Spielberg picture (this is the man almost run out of Hollywood for his monumental delays of "Jaws").
The film, in and of itself, exists just fine as this elegant piece of pop art which Spielberg has constructed, not dissimilar to the boys with toys attitude Steven Soderbergh brought to his "Ocean's Eleven" remake. Slinky, low-tech, with John Williams lyrical jazz ballet, it has vibrance, texture, and intelligence, with Christopher Walken and Tom Hanks stand- outs in their respective roles. DiCaprio is still a hard pill to swallow, but he comes off as at least a believably suave con man, if not a convincing one.

I suppose my one real critique would be length - the film has such pride and joy about its own carefree attitude that it is a shame to see it ramble to the end of its 142 minutes, with an interesting but unnecessary epilogue about how Frank Abagnale emerged from his life of crime to help the FBI start catching forgers not as smart as he was. A more concise display of how Abagnale moved on once the chase was over might have been in order, but that is hardly a deal-breaker.

3 1/2 stars (out of 4)