Forget 'Jaws,' Steven Spielberg's Stellar Detective Thriller Is a Masterpiece From Start to Finish
Lloyd 'Happy Trails' Farley: the man, the myth, the legend. What can be said about this amazing - and humble - man that hasn't been said before? Or, more accurately, what can be said in public? Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Lloyd is a master of puns and a humorist, who has authored one pun book to date - Pun and Grimeish Mint - and is working on a second. His time with Collider has allowed Lloyd's passion for writing to explode, with nearly 1,000 articles to his name that have been published on the site, with his favorite articles being the ones that allow for his sense of humor to shine. Lloyd also holds fast to the belief that all of life's problems can be answered by The Simpsons, Star Wars, and/or The Lion King. You can read more about Lloyd on his website, or follow his Facebook page and join the Llama Llegion. Happy trails!
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What is the best Steven Spielberg film? It's almost unfair to even ask. Even by Collider's ranking of Spielberg's films, the lowest rated, 2004's The Terminal, still has a healthy red Tomatometer of 61% on Rotten Tomatoes. And everyone has a different opinion of what the answer would be. There's the "right" answer, Jaws, and the usual suspects: Schindler's List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Saving Private Ryan, and so on. Masterpieces, all, but one that often gets lost in the shadows of higher-profile projects is the 2002 crime thriller/comedy Catch Me If You Can, a masterpiece from the very opening minute to the very end.
‘Catch Me if You Can’ Is a Loving Ode to Caper Films of the 1960s
Catch Me If You Can is based on the wild semi-autobiographical book by Frank Abagnale Jr., who shares the true story about his time as a prolific con artist. He chronicles taking in millions of dollars by posing as a Pan Am pilot, a doctor in Georgia, and a parish prosecutor in Louisiana, all before turning 19. Abagnale himself has claimed that the film is about 80% accurate, although that has been repeatedly challenged. So, then, the film is either a largely faithful dramatic reenactment of Abagnale's outlandish crimes, or it's furthering the man's artistry of the con. Regardless, its veracity is irrelevant because Catch Me If You Can is as entertaining as it gets.
The '60s-set film wastes little time immersing the viewer into the era. It kicks off with a beautifully crafted opening credits sequence, throwing back to the work of filmmaker and graphic designer Saul Bass (similar to Mad Men). Accompanied by frequent collaborator John Williams' score, who eschews his normal orchestral work in favor of a fun, jazz-infused sound, the credits expertly set the tone for what's to follow.
The film itself is a loving ode to the 1960s "cat-and-mouse" caper films – The Thomas Crown Affair or The Italian Job, for example – with Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank, whose exploits put him on the radar of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks). As is the tradition of the genre, Frank is always one step ahead of Carl, with Spielberg deftly building the tension whenever Carl comes close, and easing off to capture Frank's clever means of evading capture, all without generating any real fear of peril. In the hands of a lesser director, the temptation to bring in gunfire or other modern-day trappings would be too much, but Spielberg has the patience and the know-how to let the game play out, innocently, as it would have then.
Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio Excel as the Cat and Mouse in 'Catch Me If You Can'
"Two little mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn’t quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out."
Of course, having DiCaprio and Hanks certainly doesn't hurt either. DiCaprio, as Frank, is the second mouse of the quote above, first said in the movie by Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken). He refuses to quit, and works hard to do whatever it takes to crawl out of the cream: studying to pass the bar exam for his lawyer guise, learning piloting nomenclature, or acquiring the tools necessary to print the forged checks essential to his schemes. DiCaprio's effortless charm, too, makes it easy to believe that Abagnale may very well have pulled off the very things he claimed to have done. Yet he also nails the era, the moments where he's tired of playing the games, or the grief of losing his father.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Western Icon Are You Most Like? No Name · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross
Pick your name, your gun, your horse and how you spend a night in town, and we will tell you which legend of the Old West you would have been. Four icons are waiting at the end of this: the stranger who never gives his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawman who never wanted the badge, and the girl nobody has ever talked out of anything.
🚬No Name(Dollars Trilogy)
🃏Doc Holliday(Tombstone)
⭐Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)
🐎Mattie Ross(True Grit)
01
The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you? In a Western, what people call you is already half the character.
02
What are you carrying? Everything out here is character, right down to what is sitting on your hip.
03
What are you riding? A hero and their horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.
04
You have got one evening in town. How does it go? The saloon is where these films quietly tell you who somebody really is.
05
A stranger offers you money for a job that sounds like trouble. Somebody always turns up with a full purse and a bad idea.
06
Somebody is waiting for you in the street. What does the town see? Two people, an empty road, and everybody else watching from behind the shutters.
07
What is the one thing you will not do out here? The code is about the only thing west of the river that actually holds.
08
The job is finished. Where does the story leave you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your icon.
The Dust Has Settled Your Western Icon Is…
Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble. This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.
The Man With No Name
You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to, because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room without you ever having to mention it.
- Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
- You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
- The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
- You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.
Doc Holliday
You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two things were in any tension.
- Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it, which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
- You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the handful of people you actually care about.
- Val Kilmer's performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
- You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.
Wyatt Earp
You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most Western reason there has ever been.
- Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
- You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who is exposed rather than who is to blame.
- These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
- You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.
Mattie Ross
Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.
- Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
- You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you turn up exactly when you said you would.
- True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen and every adult around her has to catch up.
- You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of you.
The film belongs to DiCaprio, but Hanks arguably has the more difficult challenge. He defers the spotlight to his co-star, claiming it only when it's called for. His Carl is being made a fool of, but he is not a fool, and Hanks handles the subtlety of the difference impeccably. And just as DiCaprio brings the journey of Frank — from teen runaway, to brash and charming con artist, to respectable law-abiding citizen — into using his unique talents for collaring criminals for the FBI, Hanks takes Carl on a realistic journey of his own. Carl begins the film in dogged pursuit of an unknown, making it personal after putting a face to a name, before developing a begrudging admiration for Frank, and, finally, becoming a father figure.
That underlying theme of family and growing up, as Frank does over the course of the film, is one that Spielberg has utilized often and well, making the film fit perfectly within his repertoire. Every element of the film – story, aesthetics, soundtrack, cast, camera work – comes together as yet another masterful Spielberg work. Catch Me If You Can is perfection, plain and simple, and the fact that it isn't as recognized as his other films is, ironically, downright criminal.
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