| Movie Review of �Catch Me If You Can� I have to confess, I missed the opening credits of the movie, so I�m not sure what happened there. Perhaps the credits rolled over a �Tom and Jerry� cartoon, or maybe every credit was interspersed with a card that read �Pay attention to any and every thing associated with the word �mouse�! Because it�s VERY SYMBOLIC!� Because, you know, that whole mouse thing wasn�t over-emphasised nearly enough (it was just repeated about three dozen times throughout the show, I think), given this is a Spielberg production which means that you must leave the theatre with either a warm fuzzy feeling or at least five damp tissues. The movie opens on a game show set. The name of the game show is called �Tell Us The Truth� or something forgettable like that. Essentially, there are three people who each tell the same sentence (which only applies to one of them), and the audience decides which one of them is telling the truth. Leonardo TheCapricious is the middle guy, which automatically means that the poor extra who plays the third guy will not even have a speaking part. So the first guy tells us he is Frank Abagnale Jr., and of course, none of us believe him because the cameras are on him for about two seconds and he does not have a face that makes girls go �Eeeeee!�, so we quickly move on to TheCapricious. He tells us some long story (as the producer of the game show tells the director : �Shut him up already! Go to commercial!!�) and we segue into a snowy night in 1960s France. Well, say goodbye �cos that�s the last you�re gonna see of that game show set, which probably cost the production $2 million and has absolutely no point whatsoever, because we all know we�re here to watch TheCapricious. Why couldn�t the movie have just started in 1960s France and the remaining $2 million could have gone towards Tom Hanks� speech lessons and Chris Walken�s facelifts? We�ll never know (or at least, I�ll never know, �cos you probably never thought of it that way) because everybody around me starts coughing. Oh, wait. It�s just the Dolby Surround Sound projecting TheCapricious� (he plays Frank Abagnale Jr., but since there�s a Frank Abagnale Sr. floating around the place, let�s just go with TheCapricious) cough into epic decibel proportions. Unfortunately, unlike Nicole Kidman�s cough in �Moulin Rouge�, this cough isn�t a Cough Of Imminent Death, so we all know he�s gonna be fine. It�s just loud, but it ain�t no Cough Of Imminent Death. Tom Hanks (and we�re gonna go with Tom, because that�s the name of the cat who has trouble with the mouse � did you catch that? THE MOUSE, I SAID!!) plays the detective sent to accompany TheCapricious from the French jail where he�s held back to America. Because France will dole TheCapricious the death penalty, but America will not! Because TheCapricious isn�t black? So Tom talks to TheCapricious through some letter-box contraption, and TheCapricious� Fake Cough Of Imminent Escape moves up a few degrees in fakeness, and he collapses on the floor. Tom freaks out, calls the guards to open the freaking door, and to send The Capricious to a doctor. Cut to the prison ward, where TheCapricious is placed on a bed, the curtains are pulled, and the guards conference with Tom. Tom maintains that TheCapricious needs a doctor right away because of that cough but the guard is all, �Ze doctoor weel onlee be hair ain ze mornain�. I don�t get it. I�ve spoken to Frenchmen before, and none of them ever talk like this (that is, getting the sentence structure all correct but the pronunciation all wrong). Usually they just get the sentence structure a little bit off, but the pronunciation isn�t that bad. And no one says �ze�. Is there such a dearth of French people in Hollywood that they could not get a more accurate portrayal? Well, we have no time to ponder that, as an open door suggests to us that TheCapricious has made his grand escape. Damn that cough! French Guard mutters something which could be �I�m gonna kill the little bugger�, but could just as well be �These stupid Americans! Didn�t they watch �Moulin Rouge� to know that was not a Cough Of Imminent Death?� We�ll never know, because the guard has caught up to TheCapricious, raises a gun, and waits about ten seconds while Tom finally catches up, and begs him not to shoot. He talks TheCapricious into surrendering, and TheCapricious kinda breaks down and everything, and agrees. We then go back in time to the early 1960s, in a small town in the Northeast of America. It�s a fancy Rotarian party, and it turns out Frank Abagnale Sr. (or Pa Mouse, since we can�t get enough of that) is accepting some award. This is a small-town Rotarian club, so the award is probably as significant as a pop quiz. But let�s give the man his due. Christopher Walken walks (you can make your own joke here) up to the stage, and steps to the podium. This is, of course, the first glimpse I get of his face. Man, has the man aged or what? There are probably underwater trenches that aren�t even as deep as those crevices on his face. I fear growing old. But we have no time to ponder that, because Pa Mouse has a story to tell! He tells this little tale. Two mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse tries to escape, but soon gives up trying, and then he dies. The second mouse refuses to give up, and just keeps pedalling and pedalling, and gradually, manages to churn the entire bucket into butter and climbs out. Okay, did you get that? No? Well, don�t worry, because if there�s anything I�ve learnt about the Spielberg Sonata (tm me), which is the list of things to expect from a Spielberg film, it is this. Spielberg Sonata, First Symphony : have a anecdote or a tale or just something symbolic, tell the anecdote early on, and then repeat it at least five times through the course of the movie. Anyway, about the �two mice� story, I just have two thoughts to share. Point the first, I wonder how grossed out the milkmaid or the farmer will be when he or she cuts up that butter to find a mouse inside. And second, I just hope no animals were harmed in this production. You know, just in case Spielberg had to prove that mice were indeed capable of churning butter. You never know, would you? So be like me, and just stay off butter for the rest of your life. At the end of this story, as if to accentuate the symbolic importance of it all, Pa Mouse receives a standing ovation, least of all from TheCapricious, who is looking just a little bit too chubby. Oh Leonardo, you�ve clearly been partying too much, and it shows. Go easy on the alcohol, chum. Pa Mouse and Ma Mouse then celebrate by having a little wine and dancing to some really cheesy music. Some wine is dropped on the carpet, and TheCapricious is asked to go get a rag and clean it up. Pa and Ma Mouse continue to dance, and I can�t help but think that the cameras were lingering a bit too long on that scene. Well, it turns out Pa Mouse has been evading taxes, and so they are forced to have a garage sale and downsize to an apartment. TheCapricious also has to switch schools. First day of school. He asks this cute girl the way to French class, and some jock comes over to bump him on the shoulder. You know, that�s probably going to be the highlight of the jock�s day, and how sad is that. TheCapricious goes to class, almost as timid as a mouse (sorry, but you know, I have to help out Spielberg here, because the whole mouse thing just wasn�t drummed in enough), until someone shouts out to him and asks whether he�s the substitute teacher. TheCapricious is timid no more, and he takes over the class, and that�s when he turns the tables on the jock. Well, looks like I was wrong. This, here, is the highlight of the jock�s day. And it is indeed sad, in a totally different way. It takes the school about a week to find out, and Pa and Ma Mouse are called in, whereby they find out a little bit of the fun things TheCapricious has been doing in French class (like organising PTA meetings and scheduling school trips). TheCapricious gets sent out, and gives advice to some girl that she should fold her stupid forged letter to get out of class because her mum would never have given her a letter unfolded to take to school. This is ridiculous! They might not have had ring folders in the 1960s (which I doubt), but surely they had manila folders or at least freaking A4-sized envelopes? So he�s good with scams. Spielberg Sonata, Second Symphony : Have many examples of how sweet/charming/intelligent the protagonist is before the actual story begins. We get it. And so TheCapricious leaves home, and scams his way through. Forging cheques and pretending to be an airline co-pilot, he effortlessly travels around America, and makes use of loopholes in the banking system to get the cash. He even scams a call girl, by giving said call girl (played by a very delicious Jennifer Garner) a bad cheque for services, and getting $400 change in return. And so this goes on and on. He also finds time to bond with his old man Pa Mouse, and the two of them (the actors I mean) have pretty good chemistry going. Pa Mouse is genuinely sad since Ma Mouse ran into another hole, and TheCapricious shows concern and love. Despite the fact that he is more or less a fugitive now, this bond still means much to TheCapricious, and I have to give due props to Spielberg here. This relationship was very well portrayed, and top marks to Christopher Walken for a killer scene as well. But nonetheless, it�s still all part of Spielberg Sonata, Third Symphony : Always have a love story at the heart of the movie, because otherwise those requisite five tissues will not be damp. On the other side of the story, Tom starts tracking TheCapricious down. He finally scores some success, finding TheCapricious in a motel room. Of course, TheCapricious makes it look like he�s The FBI. So when Tom, whose accent seems to have gone down the drain ever since Forrest Gump (I guess the accent there was deliberately downplayed, since he wasn�t talking coherently that much of the time. Man, I loved that movie.), asks for identification, TheCapricious tosses him his wallet, and tells him to look after the room when he brings the evidence (the cheque-making machinery) down to the car. Of course Tom is scammed, and he realises it soon, when he opens the wallet and finds nothing but torn labels of products. That�s some pretty savvy product placement strategy there. Let the cat-and-mouse game begin! I�m going to do some major plot advancement here, because this review is getting way too long. TheCapricious moves from being a co-pilot to being a doctor to being a lawyer. Wow, how capricious is that? (Bad joke, sorry.) Anyway, TheCapricious always calls Tom on Christmas Eve to chat. Since this movie is �based� on a true story, I�m not sure if the real Frank Abagnale Jr. actually did that, but I would think not. This Christmas Eve thing is probably to bring out the theme of the father-son relationship (remember the two mice, so do you know which mouse is supposed to be TheCapricious yet??), and about how TheCapricious still longs to have Pa Mouse with him, but cannot (since he�s on the run), and so resorts to having Tom as a surrogate father figure. It�s strenuous, really, and I don�t buy it. So, at long last, the long arm of the law, as well as Tom, finally makes things tough for him, and he is forced to scam a Pan-Am recruitment campaign so that he can successfully make his way out of America under the cover of a bevy of beauties. I�m shocked, SHOCKED, that this actually works. He retreats to France, where he begins printing bogus cheques. One wintry night, Christmas Eve. Tom finally corners TheCapricious, tells him that the French cops are there, and he�s best extradited to America. TheCapricious thinks he is lying, and Tom tells him that he never lies, and that the cops will gun him down the moment he leaves the shack. TheCapricious asks Tom to swear on his daughter�s life, and Tom does. TheCapricious and Tom leave the shack. It�s quiet. It�s snowy. Spielberg Sonata, Fourth Symphony : Nothing very good ever comes out of a peaceful setting. Remember when Jaws first struck? The soft melody of Christmas carols. Nobody seems to be singing because then, the extras would have to be taught French, and that would increase production costs. TheCapricious looks just about ready to bite Tom�s nose off, when the cop cars rush onto the scene. And this brings us back to speed to the beginning of the movie. No, not the game show! But I�ll give you credit for even remembering that. So Tom escorts TheCapricious back to America, and on the plane, we find out that Pa Mouse had died. (So which mouse is he then, in the story about the bucket of cream? Think about it.) glory be, he actually manages to escape from the plane! All that would actually have been really shocking if we hadn�t already seen that in the trailer about a dozen times! Spielberg Sonata, Fifth Symphony : Something shocking and really interesting will happen in the movie, but of course, it will also happen in the trailer!! Otherwise, you wouldn�t see it in the movie because you would be asleep by that point of the movie! In any case, TheCapricious gets apprehended and is thrown in jail. Tom visits him from time to time, and this one time, TheCapricious helps him crack a case by looking at a dud cheque. Of course he knows all of this from all those bad cheques that he himself had made, except that so much attention was placed on the father-son relationship as well as his relationship with some girl during his fake doc days, that some people in the audience have probably forgotten that bad cheques were his expertise. Spielberg Sonata, Sixth Symphony : More is more. A movie cannot just merely focus on one thing. There is no such thing as �less is more�. And that goes for subtlety too. I mean, short of having a few mice scurry across the screen in some jail scene. And so everything ends well. In exchange for earlier freedom, TheCapricious will help Tom crack fraud cases. One weekend, Tom goes out of town, and TheCapricious is thinking of planning another escape. Tom finds him at the airport, and tells him that no one is chasing TheCapricious anymore, and he can go if he wants. But Tom has the faith that TheCapricious will do the right thing. Spielberg Sonata, Seventh Symphony : Someone�s soul has to be redeemed at the end of the day. Better still if two people�s lives are changed. Monday morning. 10 o�clock. The office is abuzz with activity, but TheCapricious is nowhere to be seen. The music stirs. Spielberg Sonata : Eighth Symphony : When the music is turned up, that�s when Spielberg wants you to pay attention. And TheCapricious, to the shock of absolutely no one (especially those people who are thinking �Is this another Titanic? Because I can�t sit here for another hour, not when TheCapricious is looking so chubby like that�), shows up for work. We then get some crap about how the real-life Frank Abagnale Jr. is raking in millions of dollars a year helping Fortune 500 companies fight fraud. Spielberg Sonata, Ninth Symphony (and some say, his greatest legacy of all) : Every story has a happy ending. Because life�s like that. Totally. Just ask that first mouse in the story. R.D.�s Rating : Apart from the annoying strains of the Spielberg Sonata playing ever so often in the background, this is actually a very fun ride of a movie, and TheCapricious probably does deserve all that PUPPY DAWG love. (What�s a PUPPY DAWG? Check out R.D.�s rating system here.) Sound off!! Who has put on more weight � Tom or TheCapricious? Have you any other symphonies to add to the Spielberg Sonata (contributions are welcome)? What the hell was the point of that stupid game show? Tell me here. |