I ended up seeing CMIYC in my home town of Lafayette, Indiana on a snowy night just after Christmas with my family. Being more used to the big megaplex theaters of the ATL, the small cineplex on Purdue campus took me back to when I was Frank's age and put me in that nostalgic mindset. That gave the movie more poignancy to me, coming home when Frank couldn't, so I found my own little parallels that made this movie work for me.

As it turns out, Catch Me If You Can was exactly the right movie, with the right staff, and came out at exactly the right time. It has that elusive mix of drama and comedy that Spielberg does just so easily. It has enough drama and attachment to make it a date movie, enough suspense and comedy to watch it with the guys, and enough Christopher Walken to fill a winter hat with.

The Flick:

Catch Me If You Can is a story about a man who is arguably the best con man to ever walk on two legs. Frank Abagnale Jr.'s exploits are well known from his book that CMIYC is based on, and now the movie. Mr. Abagnale went from a sixteen year old high school student to a co-pilot with almost every airline operating in the 1960s. He successfully cashed checks in every state the Union as well as in a good number of foreign countries. Long story short, this guy was the goods.

Frank's story is only part of the overall narrative, though. While he takes center stage in the film, it wouldn't be near as compelling without some truly moving work by the supporting cast. Tom Hanks as Carl Handratty, the FBI agent whose single goal it is to catch Frank at his game, is Tom Hanks at the top of his game. He has an intensity in his eyes when he's in the pursuit and a kindness that he exudes when Frank finally gets caught. Hanks shines through a desire to do his job well, the consequences be damned. Through all that, he also brings a caring to his role, whether talking about his daughter that he doesn't see often, or in his concern for Frank in the French prison.

As for the star of the show, I'll be honest. I'm not a DiCaprio fan. I like his earlier work as the homeless kid on Growing Pains, but since then, he really hasn't wowed me. Leo plays a guy that goes from the highest point of his life to the lowest in the course of 18 months and is depicted in a couple hours. Abagnale is a complicated character, and DiCaprio delivers on all levels, showing in equal part Frank's arrogance that comes with being the best, his need to please his father, and most of all, his innocence. Frank never quite realizes that what he's doing is wrong.

No review would be complete without talking about the good Mr. Spielberg. While a great director, he had cooled off recently, handling some projects that, while not terrible, were below his stature. I consider A.I. the last entry to this span of his career, as he went decidedly darker with Minority Report, which I really enjoyed. It felt good to see Spielberg back in his bread and butter genre and the film just felt like he had enjoyed himself. If Minority Report was the herald of his return, CMIYC was the loud, booming voice of the deity we used to know. As much a departure from the dark tone of MR is, CMIYC harkens back to Spielberg's glory days, mixing comedy, drama. suspense, and pastel colors.

8.8 out of 10

The Look:

What can be said about Janusz Kaminski's work that hasn't already come out? Kaminski is one of the masters of his craft in Hollywood, and CMIYC is no exception. When you consider the sheer number of locations in this film, his job was staggering, just to keep the misty jet-set look consistent. Not only does it stay consistent, but every scene conveys that halcyon feel of Frank's life in the sun. To get an idea of the quality o his work, watch the movie on mute sometime. You can get a sense of the mood of the scene, who appears in it, and the context within the rest of the film from Kaminski's work alone. Kaminski has done some banner films over the years, mostly for Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, The Lost World, Minority Report, to name some minor ones), and CMIYC still stands out in my mind as one of his better works.

As for the transfer, it's for the most part very clean, no artifacting, about par for expectations for a movie this big. Well done all around.

9.1 out of 10

The Noise:

The score to CMIYC evokes the mood of an era. I don't know how better to convey just how good the composer is at his job. Spielberg and company really took some chances with this score, not staying to the tried and true pedestrian score (Elfman and Williams, for example). But wait.. Williams did this? John Williams? It just goes to show that you're still one of the best in the game, John. Show your skills more often, those of us who listen would appreciate it.

The DVD boasts a healthy array of options as far as sound options are concerned. With DTS, Dolby 5.1, and a handful of languages, the selections aren't chock full, but are at the very least par for the course. Good use of surround in a few scenes, especially the airport. Not a showpiece for your home theater, but an excellent use of ambience for a drama.

8.0 out of 10

The Goodies:

First things first, we all know that Spielberg doesn't like commentaries, so don't expect any on this one. Instead, they try to fill the void by including a healthy amount of featurettes on the disc. These cover almost all of the areas a couple of commentaries would've covered, but in a more visual way, using a great deal of candid footage shot from camcorders on-set. (A note to DVD producers: that high-gloss featurette that the marketing department did, shot on HiDef with loads of voice acting? Make that a thing of the past. We can see through the marketing bullshit, and it doesn't help your cause. Ahem.)

Behind The Camera focuses on how Spielberg directed and how Janusz Kaminski shot the film, and the overlap that happens there.

Cast Me If You Can: The Casting of the Film breaks down the film into its main roles and covers them individually (or in pairs). Leo, Tom, and Jennifer Garner get their own shorts, while Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye (Frank's Parents), Martin Sheen and Amy Adams (The Strong Family) have to share. I really enjoyed this part of the disc, as it gives some individual attention to the players who deserve it, even if Jennifer Garner isn't in the movie for more than a few minutes.

Scoring "Catch Me If You Can" is a series of talking heads, alternating Spielberg to Williams, talking about the process of scoring. A little blah for my tastes.

The FBI Perspective focuses on the technical aspects of shooting an FBI agent (on film). We watch Tom Hanks and others get tips from experts on how to kick down a door, hold their weapon, etc.. The cool thing about this is that they are being taught how tings were done in the '60s, which was a detail that really helped.

In Closing is a more candid generalizing of the film with a voice over by Mr. Abagnale himself. Kind of a "sum up" piece on where the movie was going. It goes through some of the rehearsal process for more of the softer scenes, some of the more beautiful shots in the film, and a spelling out of the themes in the film for those who can't figure them out for themselves.

The best part of the Special Features, though, is the Frank Abagnale: Between Reality and Fiction section. This item holds four sub-items, each defining a part of Frank Abagnale Jr.'s life. In each, Frank Abagnale leads the viewer through some of the Hows in accomplishing everything he did, and separates the movie from reality a bit. The way this guy talks is just amazing, and having him appear this much on the disc is a great thing. I still would've liked a commentary track from him, Hanks, and DiCaprio, however.

7.5 out of 10

The Artwork:

I consider the theatrical poster one of the best graphics to come out of Hollywood in at least a couple of years. It conveys the chase in the picture, there's no floating heads, and if you got rid of the titles, you wouldn't know who was in the film, which takes some balls on the studios behalf. (Can't cut out the illiterates, you know?) Love it.

9.0 out of 10

THE FLICK: 8.8
THE LOOK: 9.1
THE NOISE: 8.2
THE GOODIES: 7.5
THE ARTWORK: 9.0
OVERALL: 8.9

That Steven Spielberg was intrigued with Abagnale’s story is understandable, for who wouldn’t be? But that Spielberg would want to make a movie about young Frank’s illegal escapades is somewhat surprising, since the director traditionally goes for subjects which are either serious and high-minded (Schindler’s List) or seriously into sci-fi fantasy (E.T. The Extra Terrestrial) or otherwise concerned with some danger and/or mystery (the recent Minority Report).

There’s no danger and no mystery in Catch Me If You Can, which was 'inspired' by Frank Abagnale’s autobiography of the same title. From the outset we know what happens to Frank, the teenage great imposter (no relation to Ferdinand Demara, 'The Great Imposter' portrayed by Tony Curtis in the 1961 film of that title). He eventually pays his debt to society and goes straight. So, okay, maybe Spielberg saw in Frank’s story an opportunity to make an uplifting, lighthearted adventure film, similar in spirit to his Indiana Jones series. But if that were the intent, he probably would not have chosen such a heavyweight cast—the spectacularly gifted Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken.

Don’t get us wrong: These three actors are certainly capable of handling light, satiric material, and Catch Me If You Can has some such moments. But by the time it’s completely unreeled, this is a decidedly character-driven film, with DiCaprio, Hanks and Walken creating three strong and uniquely etched film personas. DiCaprio, who was 28 when he played the 16- to 20-year-old Frank Abagnale, Jr., beautifully blows away all doubt that anyone so young could possibly be, simultaneously, both incredibly naďve and astoundingly clever about the ways of the world.

Frank Jr. starts out as a chip off Frank Sr.’s block. Walken is the adored dad who lives by his wits and is not quite the man he seems to be. Shortly after being honored as his community’s 'man of the year,' Frank Sr. goes bankrupt and begins what will be a lifetime of harrassment from the I.R.S. Then his wife (Nathalie Baye) leaves him for his best friend (James Brolin), and the distraught Frank Jr.—our hero—runs away. Having seen his dad don the guise of a successful businessman in order to pass a bad check or two, young Frank figures he can get away with the same thing. With every success, he hones his natural-born skills as a forger and impersonator, and he quickly succumbs to an ever-deepening addiction to money. Abagnale virtually charms the pants off everyone he meets, including—despite a mighty wall of resistance—the man who will prove to be his nemesis: FBI special agent Frank Hanratty, a dedicated bureaucrat played with riveting authority by Tom Hanks.

Catch Me If You Can is being promoted as a 'chase' movie, which, admittedly, it is—in basic plot structure. But unlike the good guy/bad guy chase formula, in this case our empathy goes equally to the prey and the hunter. Especially when Abagnale and Hanratty fall into a surrogate father/son relationship, which each recognizes and is touched by. Their cat-and-mouse game can be amusing, even farcical at times, but at heart theirs is a needy, respectful-at-a-distance relationship which evolves, we eventually learn, into a form of deep, mutual admiration.

When Hanratty comes close to catching up with Abagnale, the breezy airline pilot, he disappears into another disguise: as a doctor at a Southern hospital where he meets a cute nurse, Brenda (Amy Adams). Moving fast, Frank proposes and goes home to meet Brenda’s dad (Martin Sheen), a lawyer with whom he develops a different sort of father/son rapport. Before long, Frank has passed the bar and is planning to settle down in the bosom of this well-off New Orleans family. But his fantasy remains just that, for Hanratty is by now hard on his heels.

Perhaps it’s Leonardo DiCaprio alone who makes Frank Abagnale’s eccentric life story more touching than it might have been in less talented hands. However, perhaps DiCaprio’s performance shines so brightly only because it is set between two equally dazzling gems—the portrayals given by Hanks and Walken. Steven Spielberg may have thought he was brightening our holiday season with a larky chase movie about a fascinating but ultimately inconsequential character. But he has actually given us something of much more value: 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.

By Susan Stark / Detroit News Film Critic

Like coming-attraction trailers, opening credits have become a particular and quite style-oriented business. That probably dates back to the first of the "Pink Panther" films. In any case, the sophisticated, witty, eye-catching animated images and lettering behind the opening credits for Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" make a most delightful case in point. The artwork forecasts both the picture's gaiety and its gradually brightening palette.

"Catch Me If You Can" brings the singular, oddly exhilarating case of Frank Abagnale Jr. to the big screen. Based on his autobiographical book, it is quite simply a story that even the movies would not have the courage to invent.

Back in the '60s, before he reached the age of 21, Abagnale managed to pass himself off as an airline pilot, lawyer, college-level prof and doctor without having one iota of the credentials for any of those jobs. What's more, in the same period, he managed to forge and cash more than $2 million worth of fraudulent checks.

Fleet, assured and playful, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the keenly intelligent, resourceful, escalatingly audacious con man and Tom Hanks as the single-minded, superficially dull FBI man on Abagnale's case for many more years, twists and turns than any veteran gumshoe would care to amass.

Even as it dramatizes the long-term game of cat-and-mouse between the DiCaprio and Hanks characters, "Catch Me If You Can" subtly but surely sketches the motivations of the con man (he adored a dad who failed at somewhat the same games he plays) and the evolving surrogate father-son relationship between adversaries DiCaprio and Hanks.

The film's effervescence peaks in a truly giddy sequence that shows DiCaprio's (fake) pilot cruising through Miami International amidst a bevy of custom-picked young stewardesses. All heads turn. DiCaprio and company almost dance their way to the gate. On the soundtrack: Sinatra's "Come Fly with Me."

The scene is so bright, so breathless, so utterly captivating that it seems destined for a place in posterity; say, when DiCaprio gets his lifetime achievement Oscar 30 years down the pike.

Right now, this is the film sure to renew the enthusiasm of the teen-aged hordes who, in the wake of "Titanic," might have transformed DiCaprio from seriously talented young actor to matinee idol. He resisted, mightily. Good for him.

DiCaprio is glitteringly handsome in "Catch Me If You Can," but his work in the film has the depth and insight that allows him to one-up the groupies even as he thrills them.

Hanks is superb as the FBI man on the case, a superficially bland, single-noted fellow made intriguing by Hanks' disciplined, understated, precise performance. You know the character has secrets. You know it's just a matter of when (and why) he releases them -- or, at least, some of them.

The movie's third key role falls to Christopher Walken. Lately stuck in a rut populated by psychos and creeps, Walken comes back in prime style here as Frank Abagnale Sr., a man who proves that attitude and example count as much as genes in shaping an offspring's destiny.

Although the movie takes a very subtle approach to exploring the complex psychological and emotional bond between father and son, the narrative gains in depth and richness from those insights. By intelligent design, this new piece from Spielberg is a lighthearted affair. Yet Walken has a scene with DiCaprio in a coffee shop that will just break your heart.

With a skill that spins the illusion of effortlessness, "Catch Me If You Can" affirms the gifts of all involved, starting with Spielberg and going right through the ranks of the players -- on-camera and off -- that he brings together. It's a lark.

Here in the land of opportunity, we pride ourselves on taking one another at face value. That's why in a culture that falls all over itself to invest glamorous images with substance, any quick-witted trickster can have a field day pretending to be what he's not.

In the opening scene of "Catch Me if You Can," Steven Spielberg's supremely entertaining portrait of a virtuoso impostor, its protagonist, Frank W. Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), appears on "To Tell the Truth," the archetypal television game show celebrating mendacity and fraud. Before his 19th birthday, the announcer proclaims, Frank successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, and made millions of dollars forging checks.

As the camera surveys the three contestants, there's Mr. DiCaprio in the middle, the faintest twinkle of mischief in his snaky eyes, his baby face gone playfully poker. Mr. DiCaprio's portrayal of this brilliant fraud is, in a word, sensational (and far more confident, by the way, than his stolid star turn in "Gangs of New York"). An extraordinarily fluid and instinctive actor, Mr. DiCaprio has always conveyed the slippery acuity of a chameleon whiz kid who could talk his way in and out of any situation, and his performance is a glorious exhibition of artful, intuitive slipping, sliding and wriggling.

In "Catch Me if You Can," the 28-year-old actor melts into the body and mind of a wily, precocious teenager who turns himself into a master forger. Adding depth to his performance is the flashing intensity with which he conveys Frank's mercurial bouts of insecurity and panic. Even while his character is flying high, Mr. DiCaprio understands that Frank is a wounded boy, and the actor remains in intimate touch with the childish desperation behind his bravado.

Initially at least, Frank's goal isn't a selfish urge to find a shortcut to the high life, but to recoup the standard of living lost by his larcenous father, Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken), who is being hounded by the I.R.S. for tax fraud. The son also vaguely imagines that with enough money he can reunite his parents, who split up early in the movie. In the most poignant scene, a lawyer announces to the stunned youth that his parents are divorcing, and in the next breath insists he choose between them. Frank refuses and runs away from home to begin his career of kiting checks.

A major strand of the film is a father-son love story, in which Frank hungrily absorbs his shady dad's lessons in deception, bribery and sweet talk. The chemistry between Mr. DiCaprio and Mr. Walken (giving one of his strongest, most sympathetic screen performances) is so charged the two actors actually seem to share the same reptilian genes.

"Catch Me if You Can" moves in pirouetting leaps and dips that mirror its peripatetic antihero's shifting identities and changes of fortune. The game-show excerpt, which follows a cool-handed animated title sequence, sets the lighthearted tone of a movie that admires Frank almost to the point of suspending moral judgment.

From here, the film hops over to France in 1969 to observe Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), the strait-laced F.B.I. agent who has pursued Frank with a Javert-like persistence, confront him with the roster of criminal charges in a grim Marseille prison. Then it bounces back to 1963 in New Rochelle where the fresh-faced 15-year-old Frank and his French mother, Paula (Nathalie Baye), are attending a cozy Rotary Club ceremony honoring Frank Sr., whose fortunes are about to take a dive.

The film eventually makes stops in Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta and New Orleans. Some of the wittiest scenes find Frank engaged to an adoring airheaded nurse, Brenda Strong (Amy Adams), whom he meets during his brief career impersonating a doctor. He so charms her unctuous father, Roger (Martin Sheen), a New Orleans prosecutor, into imagining they're fellow romantics that Roger helps him establish a new identity as an assistant prosecutor. Frank's television textbook for courtroom decorum is "Perry Mason." To describe "Catch Me if You Can" (which takes its title from the autobiography of the real Frank Abagnale) as a smart, funny caper film is to ignore its strain of sly social satire. If the spine of the story is the elaborate cat-and-mouse game of Frank and Carl, the movie, written by Jeff Nathanson, is also a delicately barbed reflection on the American character and the giddy 60's ethos that allowed Frank to live out his fantasies. The 60's, you may recall, were the decade when jobs became "gigs." And John Williams's uncharacteristically jaunty, saxophone-flavored score captures that spirit of frisky devil-may-care merriment.

The film's cheeky attitude is distilled in a fable Frank Sr. passes down to his son about two mice who fall into a vat of cream. One mouse instantly drowns, while the other puts up such a furious struggle that the cream turns into butter and the mouse walks out. That story is repeated three times in the movie, the third time as a ludicrous mealtime blessing Frank delivers at the Strongs' dinner table.

Without referring to the burgeoning hippie culture or to the era's radical politics, drugs and rock 'n' roll, "Catch Me if You Can" captures the frivolous side of the 60's: the decade of "The Pink Panther" movies, "The Girl From Ipanema," the Rat Pack and James Bond. A clip of Sean Connery and Honor Blackman swapping double-entendres in "Goldfinger" introduces a delicious scene, set to the silky purr of Dusty Springfield's "Look of Love," in which Frank, impersonating a junior-size Bond wannabe, outwits a high-priced call girl.

Among Frank's assumed identities, the one he savors the most is airline pilot. And the movie's zaniest scenes remind us of those tinselly days when air travel was sold as sex in the sky. Before the arrival of the metal detector lent aviation an ominous undertone, every airline passenger was a jet setter, uniformed pilots rivaled astronauts in masculine sex appeal, and a lubricious novelty like "Coffee, Tea or Me? The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses" could be a best seller.

The movie's recurrent images of squealing, strutting flight attendants batting their eyes at the pilots are a hilarious throwback to a swinging 60's just before a resurgent feminism rewrote the rules of courtship and airline employment, and turned stewardesses from jiggly, compliant bunnies into crisply efficient flight attendants.

Arguably the best-acted of any Spielberg film, "Catch Me if You Can" finds Mr. Hanks displaying his usual aplomb. The actor hones a severe, potentially drab role into an incisive, touching character study of a lonely, humorless New England workaholic whose adrenaline is fired by a cat-and-mouse game in which he loses all the early rounds. Over time, Carl develops a respect and a paternal fondness for Frank. And in the movie's finale, the father-son theme culminates in Frank having to choose between the values of his real father and the surrogate dad who reined him in.

"Catch Me" is the most charming of Mr. Spielberg's mature films, because is it so relaxed. Instead of trying to conjure fairy-tale magic, wring tears or insinuate a message, it is happy just to be its delicious, genially sophisticated self.

If Catch Me If You Can is a tossed-off Steven Spielberg movie, he should toss them off more often.

After the beard-pulling philosophical pessimisms of A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report, the American mainstream master returns with a hugely entertaining, effortlessly accomplished con-artist biography that's lighter on its feet than anything he has done since Sugarland Express in 1974.

Which makes sense. Catch Me If You Can is the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr., a remarkable teenager in the mid-1960s who cashed millions of dollars in bad cheques over four years while passing himself off as a substitute teacher, airline pilot, doctor, James Bond character and lawyer. It's the perfect mid-20th-century victimless caper, and Spielberg - who apparently shot this in a fistful of days at a full gallop - captures both the look and the mood of the era.

In this he is aided immeasurably by Leo DiCaprio, who shakes off his bulky stoicism in Gangs of New York with a performance as sharp as the lean-profile threads we wish someone somewhere would please start making again. He wears the movie like a billfold in his thin-lapeled inside jacket pocket while investing his role with much more than cardsharp canniness. Girls, Leo's back.

DiCaprio has help, too. Career psycho Christopher Walken gets his biggest break in years as Frank Sr., a sweet-talking, fast-walking New Jersey businessman and Rotary Club fundraiser trying to hide the fact he's in big trouble with the IRS and on the slippery slope to personal bankruptcy and unbearable social humiliation. He loses his cherished French wife (Nathalie Baye) to his best friend, and it crushes him. Frank Jr. cannot bear to see the fall of the man he worships. At the absurdly young age of 16, he goes on the lam, determined to see his father right and put the family back together. How can you not love the kid?

As it turns out, almost everyone does. With the resourcefulness than made America great, young Frank puts his baby face to work, starts flying the friendly skies and drawing a not entirely unearned salary. Fraud is a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

And someone's got to stop it. Which is where FBI Agent Hanratty comes in. As played with familiar humility and Fugitive-like dogged determination by Tom Hanks, Hanratty's a cipher in a dark suit, black hat and gormless '60s horn-rims who picks up Frank's scent and follows it like a bloodhound.

Not that Frank's Frank any more. As he scoots between professions and identities, he leaves an increasingly sophisticated paper trail that adds up to numbers that drive corporate America and Hanratty nuts. Let the chase begin.

Catch Me If You Can is probably the most fun you will have at the movies this season, yet it's got more depth than that other smart con-artist crowd-pleaser in recent memory, Ocean's Eleven. At its heart - at the heart of all Spielberg's work - is family. Both Frank and Hanratty have lost theirs. One is running to remember. The other is running to forget.