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Leonardo DiCaprio plays the dashing young Frank Abignale Jr., a high school drop out who poses as an airline pilot, doctor and lawyer and traveled the world, bilking banks out of millions of dollars with his advanced forgery skills. Tom Hanks is Carl Hanratty, the FBI agent who chases him. In the opening sequence Spielberg slyly winks to the Count of Monte Cristo, the famous prisoner who escaped off the coast of Marseille. When we meet Abignale he's a hairy prisoner in Marseille jail (that doesn't look like it's changed much since Monte Cristo's time) who tries to escape one last time. No such luck, as Hanratty is taking him on a plane back home. We catch a glimpse of Abignale's early life with his French mother (Nathalie Baye) and scheming but charming father Frank Sr., played with panache by Christopher Walken. As their marriage disintegrates, Frank Jr. pulls stunts like impersonating a French teacher, giving quizzes and holding parent teacher conferences. The scene is hilarious enough, but to see the grin he and Walken share after he has been caught is worth the price of admission alone. Like father like son. It's the sixties and Spielberg shows that anything and everything is possible. After a bout of fascination with 70's porn, the swinging sixties are back in style. From fondue pots to the Rat Pack, there's a cool nostalgia brought out on film. The film is energetic and sleek, and unlike Ocean's 11 there is no grand heist, no explosion, just this kid pulling the wool over everyone's eyes and charming the pants off of a bevy of girls. A naïve innocence is also present. Abignale robbed people blind but he never hurt anybody as far as the film shows. His audacity was his charm and his ticket to whatever he wanted. He hopped on a plane pretending to be a pilot for the thrill of it. The audience visibly gasped when they heard his sentence and years of isolation, obviously saying that the charming handsome people we'd like to be if we were only smart enough to think of it first don't deserve such harshness. We also have to hand it to Spielberg leaving out any references to 9-11 (unlike the recent Gangs of New York that pandered in its final shot) and making this film pure escapism and nothing more. The cat and mouse relationship between Hanratty and Abignale is the heart of the picture. While Abignale slowly loses his family and it's obvious his life on the run is not always so wonderful, he takes to calling Hanratty on Christmas. One, to drive him crazy and two because there's no one else he can call. Hanratty becomes the surrogate father who sets boundaries and has no qualms about punishing him, something that Abignale respects. The acting is first-rate. Dicaprio is a sly agile fox who's so much fun to watch, while Hanks loses himself in the role of a heaving, imperfect but decent agent who proves he's no Agent Mulder in the excitement department. Walken's character's plans to stick it to the man are ultimately pathetic and he's got a lovable quality that hasn't been seen in years as it's been shrouded under that cloak of satanic evil he's been wearing. So pull up a chair and have a little something.
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