SL Film Review - Catch me if you Can

[andrewducker]

This movie has amusing moments, but it is not a comedy
This movie is about someone pulling a series of con tricks, but it is not a caper movie
This movie has chase scenes, escapes and guns, but it is not a thriller
This movie contains divorce, engagement and Leonardo diCaprio topless, but it is not a chick-flick.
This movie is a good old fashioned _story_.

If you go into it expecting it to fall into a genre, or present you with anything clean cut, you will leave confused and dissatisfied. If you long for good guys and bad guys and the thrills and spills of their duellings then you will be unfulfilled. If you want your chase scenes to contain explosions, your love scenes to have violins or your endings to be happily ever after, then this is not your film.

If, on the other hand, you want to see a (largely) true story about real people, who have good points and bad points and struggle to get through either, to see people cope with events beyond their control as best they can and to see fantastic performances that aren't archetypal, cliched or unabashedly cool, then you'll love this.

Goodness knows I did.

The music is seamless, the look is fantastically authentic and all the performances are spot on. If you find yourself thinking "But Tom Hanks is quite flat" then remind yourself - he's playing a real FBI member, obsessive and pedantic and humourless, because that's what a good investigator is. Nobody in real life is perfect and nobody in this film is either.

Score: 9/10

ObQuote (and this was hard, because it's not the kind of film conducive to cool quotes):
Carl Hanratty: Sometimes it's easier to live the lie.

Comments

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

Always put the title of the film at the top! DiCraprio is in two current movies and for a second I thought you might be reviewing GoNY while on acid....

[andrewducker]

Fixed. As is the formatting screwup.

And DiCaprio is great in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Basketball diaries, Romeo and Juliet and Catch me if you Can. I liked him in The Quick and the Dead too.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Just as well he seems to have some talent, because he is getting really ugly these days - he couldn't hope to continue with the "pretty boy" thing.

I actually don't fancy the film at all. The subject matter is just not my thing. In fact it's stronger than that, I have a feeling very close to distaste for people who live (or try) to live 'fantasy lives' and pretend to be something they are not. It can also be very dangerous for other people. I can't imagine enjoying a film about that sort of stuff.

[andrewducker]

Well, seeing as a large chunk of the film is about the fact that it does screw up both his and other peoples lives and that its the fact he's screwed up in the first place that causes the whole thing to happen, you're probably right there.

And he's still damn sexy (except in the sections where he's 10 years older, where he looks decidedly faded)

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I don't see it (the damn sexy bit), but each to their own...

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Not only was it an excellent film, it was an excellent film that was complex and definitely outside of any standard Hollywood formula. I completely agree with you evaluation.