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Preview by Jack Foley |
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US REACTION: The battle of the DiCaprio movies gathered pace in America
over Christmas, when Catch Me If You Can opened on the 25th - five days after
Gangs of New York.
But while many insiders probably predicted that Martin Scorsese’s Gangs
would be the critical favourite, it seems Steve Spielberg’s light-hearted
crime caper, based on a true story, has emerged with the more positive reviews.
In fact, while Gangs drew as many negative notices as it did positive, the
overall reaction to Catch Me If You Can was one of great joy, with many describing
it as Spielberg’s lightest film in years.
Film Journal International got the ball rolling, by referring to the film
as ‘a chance to see three splendid actors turn a larky chase movie into
an emotionally satisfying exploration of the very human need to be somebody,
and to belong to somebody’, while Film Threat said that it boasts ‘a
first-rate performance’ and is ‘a fun, freewheeling story’.
Critical heavyweights such as Variety, Entertainment Weekly and Hollywood
Reporter were also singing its praises, with the latter stating that Catch
Me is ‘a lighter movie than [Spielberg] has made in a long while, and
you sense his relief that nothing much is at stake’.
Variety, meanwhile, concluded that it is ‘more likeable than not’,
while Entertainment Weekly awarded it a B and wrote that ‘like all outlaw
capers, ‘Catch Me if You Can’ celebrates the amoral pluck of its
hero’, while the film's ‘most distinctive quality, is its ironically
sweet tone of jet-age nostalgia’.
"Spielberg catches you up in the blithe spirit of how easy it was, in
an era when the technology of surveillance was in its infancy, for a smart
operator to manipulate the power of suggestion," it continues, before
suggesting that the ‘film's charm ends up worn out by the very perfection
of Frank's con’.
The New York Post awarded it three out of four in its rating system, as did
the New York Daily News, while Planet Sick-Boy gave it eight out of 10 and
concluded that it ‘really has it all’.
Slightly more mixed, but still positive, was USA Today, which awarded it two
and a half out of four and wrote that it ‘offers mild fun but never as
much as its animated '60s-retro opening credits portend’.
Likewise, the Boston Phoenix, which concluded that ‘you'll be charmed
and entertained for a couple hours, but then you'll realise you're out 10
bucks’.
But the feeling was, generally, that people should go see it. The New York
Observer, for instance, said that it is ‘that rarity of rarities, a mainstream
American feel-good movie with both charm and intelligence’, while the
New York Times wrote that it is ‘the most charming of Mr Spielberg's
mature films, because is it so relaxed’.
The final word, however, goes to the Northwest Herald, which deliciously observed:
"Spielberg becomes a Sinatra with this one, asking us to do nothing more
than snap our fingers and come fly with him."
RELATED STORIES: Click here
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Me fared in the Golden Globe nominations...
POSTED
EARLIER: LEONARDO DiCaprio is poised to make Box Office history by being
the star of two films being released on the same day in America this Christmas.
Martin Scorsese's hugely-anticipated Gangs
of New York opens on Christmas Day alongside Steven Spielberg's Catch
Me If You Can, offering DiCaprio fans across America the tantalising opportunity
of seeing their hero as an Irish gangster or a 60s-based master of deception,
who quickly earned a place on the FBI's most-wanted list at the tender age
of 18.
And while Scorsese's epic is sure to get the lions' share of the publicity
(given its length, Oscar-calibre and history), spare a thought for the lighter,
bouncier Catch Me If You Can, which not only boasts Spielberg as director
(hot again, after this summer's Minority
Report success), but Tom Hanks as co-star!
The film is a crime drama based on the antics of master of deception Frank
Abagnale Jnr (DiCaprio) and the FBI agent who went after him (Hanks). Abagnale
passed millions in bad cheques and impersonated a pilot, a physician, and
a professor, among other ruses, before his eventual capture.
The idea for the film had been lurking around Dreamworks for some time, before
Spielberg took the helm. Previous contenders had included David Fincher, Lasse
(Cider House Rules) Hallstrom,
and Gore (The Mexican) Verbinski,
while the likes of James Gandolfini had been touted as co-stars. One thing
remained certain throughout, however, and that was the presence of DiCaprio.
Spielberg only got on board once Hallstrom pulled out - but only after he
had got High School friends of his wife, Kate Capshaw, to read for the parts
around a table, to see how it played.
Hanks,
meanwhile, made his own approach to Spielberg to be involved (having previously
worked with the director on Saving
Private Ryan) and was quickly snapped up by the eager director. He told
Entertainment Weekly: "First time I spoke to Leo I said, 'I'm sorry -
I hope you don't mind me horning on your movie. But it's just so good'."
Whether it's that good remains to be seen, of course, although the trailer
looks hot, the quality of the cast and its director is beyond dispute, and
advance word sounds promising. It may even have the festive lightness required
to out-muscle DiCaprio's Gangs in the war over Box Office supremacy on December
25.
One person who is already calling the movie to question, however, is Abagnale
himself who, apparently, wrote a letter to those involved with the film, pointing
out that he never made the FBI's most wanted list and only passed off $2.5m
in dodgy cheques.
Catch Me If You Can opens in the UK in January and co-stars the likes of Amy
Adams, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen and Jennifer Garner. We hope to join
the chase to see it soon...
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