Catch Me If You Can - Spielberg Review

 

The Sins of Our Fathers

Catch Me If You Can is a film directed by Steven Spielberg and was made in 2002 starring at that point two of the most bankable stars of that era - Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. It tells the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (DiCaprio) who before the age of 19 achieved a level of cheque fraud unseen before or since, he stole millions of dollars from the government by posing as a pilot, doctor and lawyer while being chased by Carl Hanratty (Hanks) of the FBI, all the while hoping to rekindle the marriage of his father, Frank Snr (Christopher Walken) and his mom, Paula (Nathalie Baye).

Spielberg's tact at this point of his career was to make films that were entertaining, illuminating and as always married with a rich composition and combination of efficiency and economy thanks to his directorial flourishes and the script by Jeff Nathanson.

Bookended by a flashback sequence, with Hanratty finding Frank in a foreign cell and extraditing him to the United States to face trial, we then start in 1963 where Frank attends his father's life achievement at his lodge ceremony but already the seeds of discontent are being sown by an ongoing inland revenue audit against Frank Snr's stationary shop forcing an estrangement of the marriage culminating in a legal divorce extrapolated by Paula's affair with Jack Barnes (James Brolin), her eventual second husband.

From the outset as Snr talks about seducing Paula, a French native while he was deployed in her town of Montrichard during World War II, it is clear that both Abagnale's are capable of weaving stories and tales to manipulate women (mostly) to obtain financial benefits and suits on hire.

In a pique of rage, following the divorce Frank goes on the run heading for New York City to start a life of independence all while still technically a minor. His first escapade as a pilot leads him to fly the country for free and his first sexual conquests. Hanratty is on the trail and it leads him to a hotel where unknowingly, he comes face to face with Frank who poses as a Secret Service Agent - Barry Allen, and able to evade capture while keeping hold of his machine to forge cheques still. Hanratty is behind the eight ball as he thought he was attempting to capture an adult yet the fact that Frank is a minor is a positive for him as he has no record or fingerprints for the FBI to work off of.

The scene where Hanratty meets Barry Allen is quite brilliant, it shows two actors going head to head but with the junior in a superior position but it is also the power of language in terms of that spoken and body language - the looks and tells that people give away but also the confidence of speaking to strangers gives off great power of authority when used effectively. Hanks is the elder, he has the gun and yet he is quickly into a position of submission with egg on his face. And he still gives his colleagues their ice cream.

Throughout the film, the characters are set up and brought down by the behaviour of their fathers most notably Frank and Carl himself has become an absent father to his daughter; like much of Spielberg's oeuvre this film reflects or looks upon male protagonists from broken homes and troubled childhoods. 

Spielberg's parents divorced when he was in his teens like Frank himself, and it would have been around the same timeline as Frank getting his wings so to speak, so this in a way is Spielberg's nostalgic look at a time of innocence and shot with a fondness such as the scenes at exotic getaways such as Miami, yet the scenes shot with the two Franks together are more claustrophobic and darker in terms of their setting and context. Frank keeps returning to his father in the hope of making him proud, yet Senior is too concerned with suing the government than to praise his son with the blessings he so desperately requires.

What remains on the film is a triumphant light tale that is entertaining and from a look back of Spielberg's filmography perhaps his last light fun film before he got bogged down by a darker palette and cinematography - see Munich, War of the Worlds, Lincoln and War Horse. That is not to discern the quality of those films yet they are shot with less of a rose tinted lens as previously and with a more downbeat perspective.

This film comes when Spielberg is nearly 30 years into his career, and he is a director very much at a crossroads of his filmography. Moving from the popcorn, light fare to the more discerning, thought-provoking adult maturity he is now more renowned for; this is also the last time Spielberg identified with a kid in one of his movies, much like Elliott in ET or the Goonies - from here on in it is adults who are broken or coming from broken homes for future projects. Abraham Lincoln has to overcome the death of a young child, Tom Cruise's Ray in War of the Worlds is a single father while combatting an alien invasion and the children in Jurassic Park have no parents present when running away from dinosaurs seeking solace in the arms of surrogate parental figures who are strangers but yet idols in their eyes.