Catch it if you can be bothered (Catch Me If You Can (DVD))

Member Name: sandrabarber

Product:	Catch Me If You Can (DVD)
Date:	06/11/03 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Walken

Disadvantages: Hanks, Boring, Too long

As this is going to be a negative review, I feel it only fair to set the record straight to forestall accusations of bias. I AM indeed biased. I loathe Tom Hanks (has there ever been a more sentimental, straight for the tear ducts movie star?) and I can take or leave Leonardo di Caprio (he can act, but in a rather ?by numbers? way).

So it was going to take something pretty special for ?Catch Me If You Can? to impress me. I did consider not renting it all, but I liked the idea of the true story it was based upon, and I quite fancied watching something with a stylized 50s/60s feel. Plus, it was directed by Spielberg himself who, A.I. very much excepted, usually comes up with the goods.

Anyway, onto the plot?

Di Caprio plays Frank Abignale Jnr., a smart, caring teenager who watches his Walter Mitty father go bankrupt, his mother sleep with his father?s friend, the family downsize to a crabby apartment from a luxury all-mod-cons home and his parents? marriage split up. Driven by a desire for adventure and an emotional need to give his parents back everything they lost, he turns into one of the most famous conmen (or I should say boy, his incredible story all happening by the age of 19).

Through impersonation and forgery Frank Jnr. poses as an airline pilot, a pediatrician and a lawyer, and makes himself millions of dollars in the process. All the while he is chased by FBI Agent Carl Hanratty (Hanks).

In other hands, this could have been an exciting, amazing, tense and humourous rollercoaster. But it?s not. It?s well over 2 hours of utter tedium. This isn?t helped by the fact that the film begins after all the events and so we know from the start that Frank gets caught. Meaning that there?s no suspenseful ?if? in the film, rather just a matter of ?when?.

Di Caprio as Frank Jnr. is ok. His cutie pie features enable him to pass as a teenager with no trouble, but simultaneously make it hard to believe that others would a
ccept such a youngster as a pilot/doctor/lawyer. He isn?t bad at the smoothness that enables him to get away with his escapades, but I got the feeling that he simply learned his lines, stood up and said them, instead of getting into his character and giving it his best.

Hanks goes completely the other way, overacting to embarrassing proportions. His New York accent is pure comic book and he just doesn?t pull it off when he tries to act tough and/or sardonic.

Standing out as a beacon of talent in this is Christopher Walken as Frank Abignale Senior, an ever-optimistic failure. It?s his best performance for yonks and he is the only character with any true depth. Sadly, however, he?s not in the film enough to redeem it.

For me the problem lies with Spielberg. Always great at pace, he loses in on this movie and keeps it going way, way past its sell-by-date. And he can?t seem to decide whether he?s making a serious movie about a damaged teenager who turns to crime, or a cat-and-mouse thriller, or a quirky comedy. He mixes all three together and none of them work.

I was ready to turn the film off half way through and the only way it?s stayed in my mind is to remind me that time is precious and two plus hours is too much to waste on dross like this.

Catch it when it?s on TV if you must, but sit in a hard chair or you?ll be off to the land of nod after the first twenty minutes.

Summary: