Catch Me If You Can – 2003 – Steven Spielberg
Catch Me If You Can is a two and half hour romp that tries to teach the basic concept of holding other people accountable. Inspired by a true story, it tells the story of Frank Abignale who, through the use of charm, women, and a slew of important people who took protecting information about as seriously as I take days off (ha. ha.), was able to manipulate banks, hospitals, law offices, and the FBI to the tune of $4 million in a speedy two years time.
Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) learned about the power of manipulation from his father, Christopher Walken (whose name is also Frank but it doesn't really matter. He's Christopher Fucking Walken), who used basic techniques like cheap jewelry and nice (and rented) suits to get people to think that he was more important than he actually was. Who he was was a down-on-his-luck used car salesman who lost his marriage, his business, and his home to the IRS and was trying to dig himself out of the hole he put himself in.
Taking his lessons to the extreme for...some ultimate goal of some sort, Frank (Leo) ran away from home and began using his teachings to good use through the seemingly easy art of check fraud, using a slow mail system to cash checks that wouldn't actually be accounted for for weeks, letting Frank make his getaway easily. Whether or not it was meant to look easy or just “look easy for him” I wasn't quite clear on because the movie seemed more interested in passing off the message that all women in the 1960s were complete dunces. Frank never really came across as all that smooth (like James Bond smooth, which I appreciated THAT reference by the way). His targets were just that ignorant.
The issue here is that Frank makes the claim early on that he was just a kid on his own and needed the money, but I was never sure what he needed the money for. Going into it, it seemed like he really wanted to bail his dad of his jam, but even when he was loaded with cash, the only “help” he ever seemed to give his dad was buy him a car and try to give him reasons to win his ex-wife back. So, when that idea fell flat, I just assumed Frank had grown so comfortable with his routine that it became a way of life for him...until that was thrown out the window when he decided to “settle down (see below).”
Of course, hopping around from place to place cashing check after check wasn't going to go by unnoticed and our Tom in this little story of cat and mouse was FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), a fraud investigator during a time where fraud was as important as privacy is to Facebook. Carl is a dedicated hard-ass whose personality only seemed to show when he believed he accomplished something, though in the movie, all of the vital information was pretty much handed to him by Frank. His determination to catch his “Jerry” seemed overshadowed by his fascination of how he's eluding capture so easily, so much to the point where when Frank was finally captured, I was expecting Carl to ask for his autograph.
Somewhere in the middle comes Brenda (Amy Adams), a love interest who seemed to be there only to show that Frank had some humanity left and throw away all of my pre-conceived ideas that Frank was just comfortable with the routine. Sadly though, you never get to see a love blossom between the two, you just have to accept that it happened and they wanted to get married because of it. Though Frank was trying for the same romance that brought his parents together, he just never grasped onto the concept of falling in love with someone for love's sake and I just couldn't feel sorry for the kid when it bit him in the ass. Like this paragraph, it just appears to be thrown in there for the hell of it.
Catch Me If You Can never appeared to take itself seriously enough, but it wanted to convince you that it was a serious matter. The cat and mouse between Frank and Carl just seemed too care-free and although we know that there had to be a sense of urgency on behalf of one of the two main characters, it just never came through and in moments where it SHOULD have been there, the convenience of ignorance took place instead. It's like a high-speed chase of cops and robbers where both politely stop at a crosswalk to let the old lady across the street, then simply begin again like nothing happened.
It was a fun watch but a slow watch, and I was very quickly reminded why I was so bored the first time trying to watch this; I just couldn't tell if it was supposed to be fun or supposed to be serious. I got lost in the time frame as we jumped from 1969 to 1963 regularly, but the bulk of the story took place in a two year span somewhere in the middle. I couldn't help but feel a little nauseous at all the times where if just a single person was held accountable at all, this story would have ended so much sooner than it did and perhaps that's a sign of the times, but if could have been this easy back then, humor me and throw in a little sense of danger. This could have been written as a children's story about a kid who pretends to be a pilot and a doctor and a lawyer until mommy says “OK, playtime's over, time for bed!”
All in all, I'm happy and I don't regret picking this up. I don't know how often I'll watch it again, but for the time being I give it 7 dustbusters out of 10.
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