Review Tales

I can’t help think how messy and meandering Catch Me If You Can would have been if Steven Spielberg didn’t direct it. Seriously, this is some genius storytelling in my book.

Catch Me If You Can is a thriller which is devoid of cynicism and pretense. Spielberg works best when he embraces the sentimentalism in his films, and he does exactly that in this film. Along with its super kinetic screenplay having correct amount of thrills and chills of a con thriller Catch Me If You Can is a film with an extremely big beating heart. It contains a plethora of emotions and every single emotional beat lands correctly.

This rewatch has made me appreciate this film even more, I particularly like the way Steven Spielberg portrays the trauma of Frank Abagnale, I like to think that the purpose of him doing all the fraud is much more than to have a luxurious life without doing hardwork, he mostly does that to escape from his miserable reality, this striked me during the scene somewhere in the middle of the film where Hanratty says you call me because you have noone else to call. The emphasis on the tragedy of Frank in this scene itself tells you a lot about the character and his motives.

Until this rewatch I never understood why Carl Hanratty sympathise so much with Abagnale but the aforementioned scene makes that pretty much clear as well. Carl does overtime on the Christmas eve so that the other employees with families can have some quality time the latter and that unfortunately includes all of the employees in the office, Carl sees his reflection in Frank. Frank does fraud to escape from his miserable life and Hanratty pretends to be a loyal FBI agent to escape from his miserable life. The crippling loneliness which is common in both the characters’ lives makes them strangely vibe with each other and Spielberg’s subtle presentation of it is absolutely on point.

Not to mention the top tier humour in this film, probably the best I have felt in a Steven Spielberg film. I genuinely don’t remember when was the last time I saw my sister laughing this much during a film, her approval of it being a great film (she is not even into movies) further solidifies my belief that this film blends style and substance most seamlessly out of all Spielberg films.

The fact that Steven Spielberg gets little to no respect among film bros just doesn’t sit right with me. He is treated as if he is a sort of Michael Bay-like figure he is blamed for ruining the art of cinema, being overrated, and just caring about box office numbers. I personally think disrespecting him like this is totally wrong. His economic storytelling through images, his shot composition, his editing, his use of music to punctuate characters emotions it has all been done to death at this point. His style is completely logical and easy to follow, thanks in no small part to the way it was shot and assembled. Of course Spielberg is only human and sometimes his bad traits get the best of him, and show up glaringly in his worst films. Which is when people get this impression that he is emotionally manipulative or simplistic or something. But you know he deserves a little more respect, just because he is mainstream and bringing his name up in conversation won’t get you any cred when talking with movie buffs, doesn’t mean you undermine his influence. Sorry for this odd rant, I really felt like whining about this.

I have always considered Catch Me If You Can the quintessential Christmas Film but this rewatch made me realize that it is actually the quintessential Spielberg film as well, if I were to reccomend someone a film to get into Spielberg films it would most definitely be this film.