Catch Me If You Can

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Steven Spielberg is known for the speed with which he zips through shooting movies. Except for "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", he usually wraps production in a timely manner. Even when filming the logistically difficult and pioneering "Jurassic Park", Spielberg was able to complete principal photography two days ahead of schedule. That he is able to make masterpieces without shooting and shooting and shooting is part of Spielberg´s genius.

However, just because Spielberg can do things quickly doesn´t mean that he should do it all the time. He released two movies during 2002--"Minority Report" and "Catch Me If You Can". While the former seems to have been made with an eye towards perfecting every detail, the latter seems rushed, lacking a clear vision, unsure of its tone, and unfinished. "CMIYC" was filmed in a matter of 50-something days--as if Spielberg just wanted to get done with it. You can sense a certain amount of greatness in "CMIYC", but that greatness is compromised by the filmmakers´ dubious desire to parallel the craft of filmmaking with the blur of a life that Frank Abagnale Jr. lived during the 1960s.

"CMIYC" tells the based-on-real-life story of a teenager who decided that he was better at scamming the world rather than leading the life of an upstanding citizen. When his parents divorce, Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) runs away from home and devises ingenious ways of passing himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and numerous other identities. He also figures out how to create fake checks that are so realistic that even banks believe that they are legitimate documents. However, Abagnale´s tricks attract the attention of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks with a good/bad Boston accent), a guy who practically invented the field of bank fraud prevention. As Abagnale descends further and further into a web of his own lies, only Hanratty seems to be able to get close to him, in terms of emotional empathies as well as in terms of legal enforcement.

Earlier in this review, I wrote that "CMIYC" feels unfinished and rushed. I feel that Spielberg should´ve spent more days on location perfecting his shots and more days in the editing room refining a two-hour-twenty-minute movie rough draft into a two-hour final copy. It´s possible to impart a sense of "chasing" and "rushing" (just look at "Minority Report" and the "Indiana Jones" series) without actually chasing and rushing when making a movie. Spielberg knows it, but he decided to play at guerilla filmmaking rather than at his usual game of professional craftsmanship. To be sure, there´s a lot of talent on display (the movie looks and sounds good, courtesy of eye-catching costumes and a teasingly playful music score by John Williams), but the film doesn´t seem to know what to make of itself and its main character.

You see, the real-life Abagnale admits that he was a criminal. In fact, he feels so badly about what he did that, every year, he donates a great deal of time to educating FBI agents and other security personnel on how to defeat frauds like himself. Abagnale admits that he hurt a lot of people along the way. Sure, to a young boy, the scams on display seem to be a lark, but we know that these shenanigans have serious consequences. The filmmakers know it as well, but they want to share in Abagnale´s (and Leo´s) immature glee. Thus, we end up with a movie that has a very confused middle act--it wants to be exuberantly somber or somberly exuberant, a combination that obfuscates rather than enlightens.

Like that other Leo December project of 2002, "Gangs of New York", "CMIYC" would´ve been a much better film (and possibly a great one at that) had inessential scenes been left on the editing room floor. For starters, there´s a scene between Abagnale and a high-priced hooker (Jennifer Garner of TV´s "Alias") that is wholly extraneous. By the time that this scene plays, we already get the idea that Abagnale is really good at scamming people. This scene shows us Abagnale scamming someone trying to charge him an exorbitant rate for an evening´s worth of sexual activities. What´s the point of including this scene in the movie? Jennifer Garner isn´t in "CMIYC" long enough to have added dollars to the film´s box office gross, and from a thematic perspective, this episodic incident adds nothing to the overall effect. A sequence involving Abagnale recruiting college girls as flight attendants could´ve been shorter than and would´ve had the same effect as it is. There´s also Christopher Walken´s role as Abagnale´s father. The part has been underwritten, so scenes that feature Abagnales Sr. and Jr. feel forced and half-baked rather than emotionally resonant. As unwilling as I am to write it, Walken´s good performance would´ve been better appreciated by me had they been included as deleted scenes on the DVD independent of the main feature.

So, do I like "CMIYC", then? Yes, I do. I recommend it without any hesitation. It´s easier to absorb "CMIYC" than most of Spielberg´s recent movies since it´s an entertainment rather than a serious thesis about a humanistic issue. I´ll probably watch "CMIYC" more times than I´ll watch "Saving Private Ryan" and "Minority Report" combined. Still, I know that all that gloss is a seductive style that´ll make you grin a lot, but you won´t do much thinking after the movie´s finished.

That animated opening credits sequence is amazing, though. :-)

Video:
Widescreen lovers rejoiced when they saw that "Minority Report" was framed at approximately 2.35:1--meaning, Spielberg was using a wide panoramic lens for the first time in more than a decade. It was too much for which to ask to have Spielberg shoot every subsequent movie in 2.35:1, so "CMIYC" marks a return to the 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen territory of the overwhelming majority of Spielberg´s recent works. The cinematography for this movie was not as experimental as it was for "A.I." and "Minority Report", so we get a wash of bright colors, low grain levels, and a print so pristine that we can see every blemish on Leo´s face during extreme close-ups. There doesn´t seem to be any compression problems, and I didn´t really detect excessive edge-enhancement, either. The only reason why I´m not rating the video transfer a "10" is because cinematographer Janusz Kaminski has a predilection for using odd camera angles that flood the negative with harsh lights. The resultant effect forces the viewer to shield his/her eyes sometimes, something that can be distracting when watching a movie.

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