"DiCaprio Worth Catching in Spielberg’s Jazzy Romp"
If I
didn’t know better, I’m tempted to think December is Leo-Palooza
at the Cineplex. Absent from the movie screen since The Beach
in 2000, now back with Martin Scorsese’s
Gangs of New Yorkand Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If
You Can, both opening within a week of each other, it’s a
full-out Leo assault!
Personally, I’m happy to have him back. Arguably the most gifted
young actor of his generation, Leonardo DiCaprio has definitely
been a victim of his own success. Leo bashing was all the rage
there for a while after his monster smash Titanic.
Following that up with the pretty-but-empty Man in the Iron
Mask and the dramatically inert The Beach didn’t
help. But now, working with two of America’s greatest living
directors, something tells me Leo-mania could be in vogue once
more.
Of the two
films, DiCaprio is truly in his element in Spielberg’s film.
Catch Me If You Can is based on the true story of Frank
Abagnale, Jr., a notorious con artist and check forger who in a
brief period of time masqueraded as a pilot for Pan Am, an
emergency room doctor and an assistant District Attorney for
Louisiana. All this before the age of 20 and without ever
graduating from High School, Abagnale managed to forge and cash
over 2.5 million in bad checks making him one of the FBI’s ten
most wanted.
DiCaprio
revels in the opportunity to play around in a character so
mischievous and fun. It’s a nimble performance more akin to a
skillful tap-dance than a dramatic turn and the star’s smile
alone could carry the film by itself if not for the fact the
actor is just so darn good in every other respect, too.
Maybe that
is why it stalls out so much whenever DiCaprio isn’t on screen.
This film is as thin as a pancake. Granted, if the movie
is a pancake, Spielberg doesn’t forget to skimp on the butter
and maple syrup, crafting one of the tastiest dishes I’ve seen
all year. If “light and breezy filmmaking” were included in
Webster’s Dictionary, the definition would include instructions
to watch Catch Me If You Can.
Still,
Catch Me doesn’t do much to expand the director’s canon.
Maybe after descending into darker depths with A.I.:
Artificial Intelligence and this summer’s
excellent-until-that-ending
Minority Report Spielberg felt he needed to retreat to
more familiar territory. Much like E.T., Hook,
Empire of the Sun and others this is another in his long
line of “lost boy” tales. All Abagnale wants is a father, his
string of successful impersonations nothing more than an
amusingly complex cry for help.
He’s got
two father figures to choose from here. Abagnale’s real father
Frank, Sr. (Christopher Walken, simply wonderful) is a failing
businessman from whom he first learns the power of illusion. He
also discovers how those illusions, if not properly maintained,
can come crashing down. In his father’s case, not only in the
destruction of his business, but also in the disillusion of his
marriage to his French wife Paula (Nathalie Baye), a woman he
met while on leave in Paris.
Abagnale’s
second father figure is the man trying to catch him, FBI agent
Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks). Hanratty makes his mission in life to
catch the gifted con artist, growing to respect the talented
young man with each new grift. At one point, the truth of
Abagnale’s true search clicks for Hanratty during a Christmas
Eve phone conversation when the agent exclaims to the flustered
kid, “You’ve got no one else to call!” It isn’t money the boy is
after; it’s a father’s respect and admiration; and Hanks’ sly
chuckle and twinkled brow is all that’s necessary to verbalize
an internal realization.
As fun as
Catch Me If You Can is, it’s incredibly slight and
lightweight. No problems there, really, save that there is no
reason Spielberg needs to more than 140 minutes to tell such a
paper-thin tale. His hip, retro-cool Sinatra-esque (love that
swanky John Williams score – the composer’s best in years)
handle of the film is wonderful, sure, but that doesn’t mean I
should give him a free pass for self indulgence in regards to
running time. The sleek and cool 60’s style he’s going for
works, but William Wyler or John Frankenheimer would have told
the same story in just over 90 minutes, and there’s no reason to
expect less from Spielberg.
Luckily
he’s got DiCaprio’s energy to carry him to the end credits.
Without the young actor, I can’t imagine Catch Me If You Can
being worth the chase.
