Posted: 12/27/2002

Catch Me if You Can

(2002)

by Hank Yuloff

Could this be Speilberg’s most relaxed and straight-forward comedy?

The acorn does not always fall far from the family tree. Frank Abagnale, Sr. was a business man with a lot of larceny in his sole. But the IRS caught up with him and the tide turned against him. His son, Frank Jr., took what he learned from his father and expanded it - traveling around the country for several years in the mid-1960s as a successful con artist, taking in several million dollars while changing identities as the need arose.

This is the basic story of Catch Me If You Can, another in a long list of Steven Spielberg-directed films (Jaws, Hook, Amistad, Schindler’s List) which are simply excellent.

Leonardo DiCaprio (from Titanic and Gangs of New York - where he was great) plays Frank Jr., the would-be airline co-pilot, doctor, lawyer, Federal agent who eludes FBI Special Agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks from Road to Perdition, Big, Bachelor Party) at every turn. That is, until Frank makes one little mistake…but you have to see the film to find out what it is. I won’t give it away here.

This was a completely enjoyable movie. It made me wonder if it used to be just that easy to pass yourself off, a la Professor Harold Hill, in the world before computers could track you down quickly and banks were less sophisticated. And, though it seemed rather difficult to believe, the foibles of the FBI and their missing their man by just minutes every time seemed a bit made up for the movie, but added to the overall entertainment. Something else I’m not clear on, but have to accept at face value, especially in light of recent events, is the way airline pilots were treated in the early days of air transportation. I can’t explain this without going into a lot of detail, and it’s the kind of thing that’s inherent to the film’s story. So, again, you’re just going to have to go see this film. To be fair, this is a good little bit and really adds to the comedy in the film. And it shows what a very capable director can do with a script, and the experience was as enjoyable as many of his recent films (see Spielberg’s last two movies: Minority Report - 2002, and Artificial Intelligence: AI - 2001).

Along with DiCaprio and Hanks, key supporting roles from old masters such as Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, The Prophecy), Martin Sheen (The West Wing), and the rest of the cast play their roles just straight enough to make this comedy a lot of fun to watch.

Hank Yuloff is a brain surgeon. Yeah, that’s it, a professional baseball player… Yeah, uh huh, in Los Angeles.

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