Catch Me If You Can

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

Rating: A-

The glamour of check fraud.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Frank Abagnale, Jr., a true-life rascal who became self-taught in the fine points of check forgery at a tender young age. Along the way, he successfully impersonated airline pilots and emergency room doctors, as well as a Louisiana lawyer. Tom Hanks is the stalwart, no-nonsense FBI agent who devotes his Christmas days and a large portion of his career to tracking DiCaprio down and putting him behind bars.

I use the term "rascal" because the film wants us to view Abagnale's exploits as if they're the work of a charming rogue rather than of a deceitful criminal. Ask the question "But what about the people he victimizes?" and the entire movie pretense collapses like a house of cards. So we won't ask that question. In this respect, Catch Me If You Can wrestles with the same problem that movies such as Blow have confronted in the past. How do you make the lead character appealing to the audience when he's an admitted felon? Well, first, give him a hardworking father whose business is going bankrupt in spite of all his efforts. Show the audience that our hero has no choice but to lead a life of crime, after all, since honesty only leads to the poor house. Then pick a "victimless" crime, which in Catch Me's case means defrauding wealthy, faceless banks. Of course, with a public that eagerly makes heroes out of murderous gangsters, all these precautions are probably unnecessary anyway, but they're included to pacify us curmudgeons in the audience.

All right, so we're taking the film at face value, and we find it has many humorous sequences. If nothing else, Abagnale's brashness is worthy of note. Here's a guy who wasn't afraid to take risks in order to live out his fantasies. As he learns how to make his fake checks better and better, we're encouraged to sympathize with the way he continually outwits the banking system and Hanks' pursuit. A subtheme which is never expounded upon but nevertheless present throughout is the different treatment DiCaprio receives when people think he's an airline pilot versus when they think he's an ordinary teenager off the street. In the former case, they're much more willing to bend the rules and accept his dubious checks. DiCaprio becomes an anti-hero, taking advantage of society's snobbishness and scoring one for the little folk.

One scene I found a bit perplexing involves DiCaprio encountering a prostitute in his hotel. She more or less seduces him, without him realizing she's a prostitute. (This is why it's always a good idea to work "So what do you do for a living?" into the conversation as soon as possible.) Just when she gets his engine revving, she springs the news that she charges admission. And it ain't cheap. So he pays her with a fake $1400 cashier's check, and she gives him $400 change in real money. Okay, I get it - she thinks she conned him, when in reality he's getting 400 bucks from her and a piece of her tail to boot. You can practically hear the laugh track. But unless I'm forgetting something, nothing will stop her from cashing the check tomorrow morning. So she's really not getting any comeuppance for being such a sneaky prostitute. Am I the only one who's bothered by these things?

I especially appreciated that Steven Spielberg's latest offering is entirely free of his usual gimmicks. He steps back and lets the story tell itself for a change, instead of interjecting phony sentimentality and cloying references to pop culture every time he turns around. The movie is driven by DiCaprio's and Hanks' solid performances, and the well-crafted script which always maintains our interest.

Even though this film does just about everything right, it's ultimately limited by its own modest scope. It's more or less a pleasant diversion for an evening's entertainment. But you knew that going in, you say. Yes, I reply, I did.