 Most critics are suggesting that the happiest gift lying among Hollywood's glitter this Christmas holiday may be Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken. Nearly all suggest that it is a throwback to the breezy, Rat Pack comedy capers of the late '50s and early '60s, with DiCaprio stepping into what would have been the Sinatra role (and with a bit of an actual Sinatra recording folded into John Williams' Sinatra-esque soundtrack for good measure), playing the cocky conman Frank Abagnale Jr. Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer comments: "Catch Me If You Can is as crisp and trim as a new suit. Well, a new old suit -- say, circa the 1960s." Stephen Holden of the New York Times calls the movie "supremely entertaining" and describes DiCaprio's performance as "sensational ... a glorious exhibition of artful, intuitive slipping, sliding and wriggling." But it is Christopher Walken's adeptness in the role of Abagnale's father that is being mentioned for its Oscar quality. Ty Burr in the Boston Globe writes that Walken does "Oscar-worthy work in the movie." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post argues that Walken "pretty much steals the picture from his more illustrious co-stars." And Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail agrees. "The true thief here," he says, "is Walken, who steals the picture outright." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post is one of several critics who imply that this may be director Spielberg's best movie ever, calling it "brilliantly made," then writing: "This guy really knows how to make a movie; he's studied the old-movie formulations and effortlessly duplicates them here." Steven Rosen in the Denver Post puts it more succinctly, commenting: "This is one of the year's best movies, as well as one of Spielberg's." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times doesn't go that far. "This is not a major Spielberg film, although it is an effortlessly watchable one," he says. Writes John Anderson in Newsday: "That we're encouraged to admire Abagnale could provide grist for the crypto-fascist talk radio/cable mill, but what Spielberg has constructed is a very adult, very funny, very well-acted daydream." A few -- a very few -- critics do not find the daydream altogether captivating. Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times is one of them. "Spielberg seems to have become too big to tell small stories," Dargis writes, "which is one reason why the film sputters on one too many false endings, as if the finale needed to be important enough to justify the director's involvement." Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune dishes out considerable praise for the performances and direction, but then notes that there's a "catch," explaining: "The movie, good as it is, still left me feeling shortchanged. There's something missing: perhaps an attitude that would have both made Catch more entertaining and taken us deeper into Frank Abagnale's fascinating personality." Bob Strauss of the Los Angeles Daily News also finds it difficult to describe his misgivings about the movie. "There is something about Catch Me that fails to fully satisfy," he remarks. "It well could be that its serious underpinnings weigh it down." |
