Catch Me If You Can

Part of Spielberg's skill as a filmmaker comes in choosing the right collaborators. Janusz Kaminski's gorgeous cinematography, Michael Kahn's graceful editing, Jeff Nathanson's clever script, and John Williams' score all work well in unison, but the film's masterstroke is the casting of Walken as DiCaprio's utterly decent father. Read full review

It's brilliantly acted. But best of all, it's brilliantly made. Read full review

It's the most charming and buoyant film Spielberg's ever made. Read full review

Results in about the nicest movie you could ask for at the holidays: a gently funny, sweetly adventurous film that makes you feel genuinely good, that is to say, entirely unconned by false sentiment or sharp, overmanipulative Hollywood practices. Read full review

Supremely entertaining. Read full review

Never less than engaging; all that’s missing is a proper crescendo. The picture moves along briskly, even at two and a half hours, but it seems to be running on cruise control. Read full review

Everything about this swift and gorgeous and tremendously enjoyable film is played out in a rush of staccato edits, crisp performances, and charmingly giddy subplots that coalesce into Spielberg's most purely entertaining movie in years. Read full review

Nothing if not a celebration of our willingness to be gulled by life's charming strangers. Read full review

Feels more like The Bill Clinton Story than "Primary Colors" (1998). It's a paean to naughty boys who dream of potency and become enraptured by their own scams -- a great American archetype. Read full review

Based on the real-life exploits of Frank W. Abagnale but played more for myth than believability. Read full review

Spielberg directs so fluently that it takes a while to perceive how well made the film is. Read full review

Catch Me If You Can represents a distinct change of pace for director Steven Spielberg. This is a lighter movie than he has made in a long while, and you sense his relief that nothing much is at stake. Read full review

Spielberg must have sensed that he owed us some fun, and the movie has a sleek and carefree look -- the lightness of a sixties comedy, made with the extraordinary speed and panache of our most fluent director. This is a true holiday film, a gift from some genuine pros who know how to entertain without sweat. [23 & 30 December 2002, p. 166]

Like a trot around the track for the thoroughbreds involved, and one of the results is that it takes them far too long to get to the finish line. Read full review

As an actor DiCaprio has long been known for his ardor, not to mention his tiresome self-seriousness, but working for Spielberg, he plays his scenes with a comic deftness I thought he didn't have in him. Read full review

Breezy and easy to swallow. Its maker, Steven Spielberg, hasn't had so much fun in two decades. Read full review

The movie could have used a further dose of the resonance Walken gives it, and a more intellectually adventurous director might have brought the theme close to home. Read full review

Brilliant performances by DiCaprio as Frank Jr. and Christopher Walken as his fallen father - and an enjoyable one by Tom Hanks. Read full review

DiCaprio could hardly be better. He brings this outrageous character and his demons to life with skill, sympathy and a symphony of small, telling touches. Read full review

What lingers in the memory is the impression of having experienced a frolic, a ride through the park on a bright winter day. Read full review

This is not a major Spielberg film, although it is an effortlessly watchable one. Read full review

An enjoyable, although not ambitious, holiday outing. Read full review

The film's charm ends up worn out by the very perfection of Frank's con. We look at this teen wizard of rotating identity, and we realize we know everything about him except who he is. Read full review

Even in its somewhat unwieldy form, Catch Me If You Can is charming, sparkling entertainment. Read full review

Spielberg's directing is a tad less tricky than usual, but he doesn't have much talent for psychological suspense, which is the heart of the story. DiCaprio underplays nicely and Walken is superb as the con artist's downtrodden dad. Read full review

Slight, enjoyable comedy. Read full review

You won't find a movie that's more fun this season -- but at 2-1/2 hours, it's probably too much of a good thing. Read full review

A pleasant romp through the land of Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. Read full review

In the end (and it's a happy end, to be sure), Catch Me if You Can is as crisp and trim as a new suit. Well, a new old suit - say, circa the 1960s. Read full review

Breezily enjoyable but thin. Read full review

We aren't talking Oscar here. We're talking truly fine performances and an unexpectedly hep John Williams score. We are talking a story that rollicks with the most rollicking of them. Not great cinema; just a great time at the movies and certainly a film well worth catching if you can. Read full review

Finally seems like a bit of a con in its own right, but a marvelously smooth one.

For all his genre-hopping and shape-shifting Spielberg seems to have become too big to tell small stories, which is one reason why the film sputters on one too many false endings. Read full review

Spielberg's inchoate attempts at cultural observation stretch the movie out and dilute the giddiness instead of adding a pleasurable spike. When the movie doesn't feel inflated, it feels soggy. Read full review

Catch offers mild fun but never as much as its animated '60s-retro opening credits portend. They're the cutest of the year. Read full review

Well-enough made and highly watchable, but it lacks the one thing that would put some swing in its step and some swagger in its attitude: a sense of jazz. Read full review

The whole lighter-than-air lark whizzes by like a brisk, kandy-kolored dream of the 1960s, flavored by a Saul Bass inspired credit sequence; a slinky, Henry Mancini-esque score; and a stunning array of period sets and evocative locales. Read full review

DiCaprio is far more successfully cast here than in Gangs of New York: His performance is all about acting; it's a mild kick to see how he'll manage to talk his way out of nearly every scrape. Read full review

What begins brightly gets bogged down over 140 minutes. A film that took off like a hare on speed ends like a winded tortoise. Read full review