BEFORE: Tom Hanks carries over from last night's film, as tonight's total hits 750, 3/4 of the way to 1,000 movies. I know I said I'd take more breaks this year, but I haven't had the need to do so yet, and the result has been a pretty solid January so far.
THE PLOT: A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr. who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor.
AFTER: Well, no young kids went on the run tonight, but Leonardo DiCaprio (last seen in "Romeo and Juliet") did, playing a teenager, so that's kind of in the same ballpark. And in a way this was also about fathers and father figures - the central character's father sort of trained him to be a charming con man, and the FBI agent who pursued him ended up having a sort of father/son relationship with him, even while they were on opposite sides of the law.
And this film reversed the trend from earlier this week - instead of an adult fugitive taking a kid on the road, here we've got a teenage fugitive, giving an adult authority figure the run-around.
But it's still hard for me to root for a central character with few redeeming qualities, other than being charming. How much damage did he do when he was impersonating a doctor, or a lawyer? You can't just watch "Ben Casey" and "Perry Mason" and then expect to dispense medicine properly, or follow the rules of the court. OK, so the scene where he made flubs in the courtroom was played for laughs, but I wasn't laughing when he was working in the E.R., and I bet his patients weren't either.
And then there's the cost of all the manpower required to track and capture him, in addition to the money he stole by cashing bogus checks, plus he ruined things for the next person who truly needed to cash a check from someone he scammed. Sure, security in the 1960's may not have been what it is now, but that's not enough valid reason to put it all to the test.
So a fine example of a chase/crime film, but unfortunately another unsympathetic central character. I feel the need to factor that in. Also there's a fair-amount of time-jumping around the narrative - the film opens with Abagnale in captivity, then it jumps backwards to show us his childhood, then forward again as he's extradited to the U.S., then back AGAIN to show us pieces of his con-artist career. I understand why this is done, but it's a lot to ask of the average viewer, having to keep two concurrent storylines going, and then figuring out what happened before what. Also, it's often a sign of what would be a weak story if told as a proper linear narrative.
If you're going to use a present-day (or "not as past") sequence as a framing device, it should be shown ONCE, maximum, as it was in "Saving Private Ryan". Go back into the past, show the complete storyline up until the point you started at, and then continue. It's no less egregious, in my opinion, but it is less confusing. Or you can use character-driven narrative flashback like in "Amadeus", but don't have two timelines progressing forward in two different years, it's just too problematic. This also goes on in comic books all too often these days, two concurrently-running past/present narratives, and it's usually done either as a trick, or to cover story problems.
Also starring Christopher Walken (last seen in "America's Sweethearts"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "The Dead Zone", with Walken), Amy Adams (last seen in "Doubt"), with cameos from James Brolin (last seen in "Capricorn One"), Jennifer Garner, Ellen Pompeo.
RATING: 6 out of 10 diplomas
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