A Spielberg movie, so it was well-paced. It's the strange [true] story of the 16 yr old Abegnale who posed as an airline pilot and defrauded Pan Am of over 4 million dollars. He also posed as a teacher, an emergency doctor and a lawyer (he even passed the bar exam after studying for it for a week! :O).
I dislike DiCaprio for his choice (and he just looks ... so greedy and well-fed at times. lol), and Hanks always makes tear-jerkers that I can't watch (I hate his ringing, accusing nasal intonation).
Ethically, it was so believeable - the whole movie, the whole time. This is why: I've begun to understand how the teens and twenties are a time for youth to make themselves in words and by imitation. They lie, cheat and steal quite without any apparent conscience or emotion - the least sign of approval (a smile, a laugh, eye contact) esp from a hero can fix that into their tabula rasa. It substitutes for experience in the 'personality' of reading, movie-watching people.
[I knew a bunch of 24 yr olds on irc and orkut who didn't know the truth from a lie and for 2 years maintained a series of unresolved personas that varied from Godfather to James Bond, rock star to psychopath *with no judgement or preference* depending on their alcoholic mood. It was fascinating and frightening to see the process of personality formation in action. None of it was good because none of them were real.]
If ever they change, it's from getting caught. And socially being punished as liars, frauds, impersonators. That's the only time, if ever, when they evaluate who they are and what they've become. At one time the boy, Frank is begging his dad, "[If you love me/are my father,] tell me to stop" but his father refuses. He misses the son's plea for tough love/authority. He's too caught up in his own life, his cons and games and the glamour of his son's to see it's tackiness and his son wearing down from the stress of upping the ante.
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