January 05, 2004
Catch Me If You Can
Spielberg's movie treatment of the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (played with aplomb by Leonardo di Caprio), who as a young man became the most successful check forger in US history. In his spare time he impersonated airline pilots so he could get free air travel deadheading. Later he impersonated a doctor and later still a lawyer. The character who provides the plot is the FBI agent who is trying to catch Abagnale with little success (played by Tom Hanks in full dork mode).
As you'd expect from Spielberg and this team of actors (Christopher Walken does an unusually subtle turn as Abagnale's under-achieving father), the movie is technically brilliant. But there's just not enough of a story to really hold my interest, and it suffers also from characters none of whom really inspire a lot of sympathy except for some of Abagnale's victims. Looking back on it, I think my favorite part of the movie is the cool 1960s-style animated opening title sequence.
Posted by jeffy at January 5, 2004 11:03 PM