Catch me if you can
I used to be a fan during the times everybody was completely overwhelmed with “Titanic”. The scariest thing that happened to me during that time was when I gave a book about him as a birthday gift, and another girl said she wanted one too. When I offered to her to give it to her as well on her birthday, she replied “But that’s in 6 months! I won’t be interested in him anymore by then”. That was certainly the case, but I was shocked that this 11 year old slut already knew that at the time. I thought my love for Leo would last forever.
So it did, it seems. At some point, you’d realize that merely a pretty face doesn’t do very much to you, and later you’d realize that this person happens to also be an actor and not merely a pretty face. He has had his better times (in “Gilbert Grape”, “Departed” and, well, “Catch me if you can”) and his worse times (in “Titanic”, “The Man in the Iron Mask” and especially in “Romeo+Juliet”).
My interest for him lasted at least until “Catch me if you can” came out (a time during which I watched “Romeo+Juliet”, “The Man in the Iron Mask”, “Celebrity” and “The Beach” because of him), but when it came to this movie I heard too many bad reviews so I ended up never seeing it. Maybe it was because I was disappointed with “Road to Perdition”, a Tom Hanks movie I disliked for its silly morals (or so I thought). In fact, I had a hard time convincing my friends that I found the film to be shallow.
But perhaps now is actually the best time to see the film. I found it memorable, funny and downright lovely. Certainly Spielberg is playing with clichés a little bit too much, and I especially dislike the cheapness of certain shots – a piece of money flying through the floor, a man running but you cannot see his face to heighten suspense – but in general, I thought we had some real emotions here. The friendship between the main characters is developing in an absolutely beautiful manner: “Merry Christmas!” That was also sort of cheap, but it hit my heart directly. Even the divorce background and the portrayal of this insecure little boy who still loves his family came off as awfully lovely to me.
I still hate Amy Adams with a passion.
“Catch me if you can” certainly is not a deep film, and it also is no masterpiece of film-making, neither in storytelling nor in cinematography. But I thought it had a good story, and I am enjoying it immensely like I enjoy certain TV shows. Maybe I should continue on with my quest of seeing all Leo movies of interest, which would be “Marvin’s Room”, “Gangs of New York”, “The Aviator”, “Blood Diamond”, “Revolutionary Road” and “Shutter Island”. Oh yeah, and I think he is the perfect Gatsby. I hope.