CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: A Bucket of Cream

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. This week is Catch Me If You Can, which is as far as I can tell the closest thing we have to a Spielberg comedy that works.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Jeff Nathanson
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye
Runtime: 141 mins.
2002

The common conception is that modern Spielberg is lesser than vintage Spielberg. Granted, since 1993 Spielberg has only made two instant classics*. His output of the past two decades has been largely glossed over by the public and left out of critical conversations about Spielberg the Artist. Maybe it's no coincidence that 1993 was around the time that Spielberg made yet another conscious decision to move away from genre fare and towards more grounded socially conscious efforts.

*These classics being Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln.

So we come to Catch Me If You Can, a movie that passed through the hands of many directors and actors before landing with the team most capable of making it. At twenty-seven years old, DiCaprio was the perfect candidate to portray Frank Abagnale, famed real-life scam artist wunderkind. Abagnale was ten years younger than DiCaprio when he went on his check fraud spree, but DiCaprio convincingly portrays a heightened adolescent innocence for the first twenty minutes of the film. DiCaprio then spends the next two hours brilliantly subverting and exploiting that appearance of innocence, which makes this one of the most pivotal roles in Leo's career; before Catch Me he had been stuck in a bit of a Titanic rut and, as Spielberg predicted would happen at the time, Catch Me catapulted Leo into a series of roles that cemented him in the top echelon of Hollywood talent.

The kinship between DiCaprio and Abagnale can be easily extended to Spielberg himself. The whole story of Abagnale is about the way that, through sheer willpower and charisma, he was able to manipulate the oppressive systems around him. When Spielberg was fifteen years old with only a bevy of homemade 8mm films under his belt, he actually lied his way into Universal Studios, then proceeded to find an empty office, make fake name plates for himself, and learn about movies from professionals for three months. Abegnale captured Spielberg's spirit and Spielberg captured Abegnale's.

For that reason Catch Me If You Can is surprisingly generous toward its main character. This is what separates it from its closest cinematic cousin, The Wolf of Wall Street, a movie that a lot of people thought glorified its protagonist's behavior whereas it actually vilified the systems that allowed such behavior to happen. No, Catch Me is somewhat critical of the systems Abagnale cuts through, but is mostly just having a good laugh at them. The movie is surprisingly funny, and very lenient towards Abagnale's activities. Spielberg glories in Abagnale's youthful ingenuity and determination. Rather than crucify him for breaking the law, Spielberg explores the way broken families can lead to deviant behavior.

Thus we get a movie that feels far breezier than if directed by, say, David Fincher**, but a movie that is grounded by a strong thematic exploration of family. It's a lot of fun without feeling like a guilty pleasure. Spielberg excels at towing the line between substance and indulgence, and he displays perfect balance here.

**One of the original contenders for directing this movie.

The cast is excellent, blending with the idealized light-saturated cinematography to create a clear adolescent power fantasy version of the 1960s. The editing is brisk and insightful. Not only does it build character through juxtaposition--a most satisfying benefit of good editing--but the immaculate pacing prevents a single minute of the 141 minute runtime from sagging. Catch Me is a lark in a way that biopics never are (once again calling up comparisons to The Wolf of Wall Street).

Spielberg's wizardry is in full force, even if that means it is mostly invisible, as he steps back to allow all of the aforementioned elements--satisfying plot structure, engaging performances, beautiful composition, snappy editing--to blend together and enhance each other. Of course, I love Cuaron, Tarantino, and all sorts of other flashy filmmakers, but one of the greatest compliments a film can receive is that the craftsmanship is invisible.

I don't think we can call this movie anything less than excellent Spielberg, even if it didn't leave a meteoric impact on the face of popular culture like half of his filmography. It may be a "minor work," but it is only so as an artistic decision about how best to tell the story, not due to any deficiency on the creative level. The important thing is that Spielberg had fun making this movie, and that you won't be able to help yourself from feeling the same way.

4 / 5  BLOBS