The director is at the top of his game.

The director is at the top of his game.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
In 2000, "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich" helped Steven Soderbergh have the single greatest winning streak for an American movie director since 1974 when Francis Ford Coppola released "The Conversation" and "The Godfather, Part II" within the same 12-month period. This year is likely to go down as a similar "year-to-remember" for veteran director Steven Spielberg.
If Spielberg's crackerjack summer thrill ride "Minority Report" redefined both the science fiction and action genres, "Catch Me if You Can" is simply the most robustly entertaining Spielberg movie in more than two decades. I can't think of a more celebratory or invigorating way to close out what has been a banner year for American cinema.
Unfortunately, "Catch Me" is the type of film that's traditionally underrated by most critics, which probably dooms its chances on Oscar night where, by all rights, it deserves to sweep. (Shockingly, there are still some people out there who actually prefer the overly deliberate, straining-for-effect Spielberg of "Schindler's List" and "The Color Purple.")
Makes it look easy
Spielberg's breathtakingly confident and assured staging of Jeff Nathanson's airtight script makes his job look so easy, you're liable to think he isn't doing much at all. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Directors have to work at their craft for a lifetime -- as Spielberg has -- to achieve this sort of lighter-than-air "effortlessness." And with "Catch Me" and "Minority Report," Spielberg is once again at the top of his game, the same master entertainer who helmed "Jaws," "Close Encounters" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" before briefly losing his way after making "E.T." It's enough to make you want to sing a few bars of "Hooray for Hollywood."
The story
Spielberg's protagonist, Frank Abagnale Jr., was a legendary 1960s con man who successfully posed as an airline pilot, doctor and lawyer, plus cashed millions of dollars in expertly forged checks. The fact that Abagnale did all this before his 21st birthday only makes his story even more amazing. Played by Leonardo DiCaprio with the same mega-watt charisma he brought to "Titantic," Abagnale is so damn charming you can see how he actually managed to pull it off.
According to Nathanson's script, the two determining factors that led to Abagnale's life of crime were his businessman father's bankruptcy after running into problems with the IRS, and his parents' divorce when he was 16. Running away from home, Frank Jr. was determined to get everything back that his old man had lost: respect, money and dear old mom. While the first two proved ridiculously easy, not even a master manipulator like Abagnale could reconcile his folks.
As Carl Hanratty, the dogged FBI agent who made capturing Abagnale his life's mission, Tom Hanks does most of the movie's character actor heavy-lifting in a remarkably self-effacing, shrewdly-judged comic performance. Defusing his trademark sparkle with Coke bottle glasses and a dowdy, off-the-rack suit, Hanks still manages to more than hold his own opposite scintillating scamp DiCaprio.
Cat and mouse
The fact that Spielberg plays their tricky cat-and-mouse game more for laughs than suspense doesn't make it any less compelling. When Hanratty finally catches up with Abagnale -- who's been rotting away in a Marseilles prison -- it's less of a victory for the fed than simply an end to his four-year-long chess game with a particularly wily opponent.
Hanratty eventually sprung Abagnale from prison and got him a job working for the FBI's financial crimes unit where his expertise proved invaluable. According to the movie's postscript, the two men remain friends to this day.
Supporting cast
Although DiCaprio and Hanks are pretty much the whole show -- not that anyone is likely to complain -- Christopher Walken (the hard-luck Frank Sr.) and Amy Adams (a candy striper Frank falls for while impersonating a doctor at an Atlanta hospital) turn in terrifically appealing, even moving supporting performances. And "Alias" fans are sure to get a kick out of Jennifer Garner's fetching turn as a high-priced call girl who takes a shine to Abagnale during his brief layover in New York City.
After the amazing year he's had, I'm finally ready to forgive Spielberg for mutilating his greatest film, "E.T.," in its 20th anniversary re-release last spring.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.