Catch Me If You Can

Wow! I remember so many awful films that loosely revolved around high school from the early 1980s. They usually had someincredibly strained plot and lots of 27 year old actors pretending to be students. As I watched this film I felt a little of the nostalgia of growing up in the 1980s. However, then I find out that this film was made in 1989? Say what! Well, the nostalgia factor ends right there, this is just bad. The plot has the city preparing to close a high school and threatening to bus all of the students to inner city high schools. Which is odd, in that the students at this school are both wealthy and abundant. In fact, the main character lives in a mansion. Makes you wonder how they cannot find money to keep this school alive, have they never heard of property taxes. Oh, but here is the kicker. The school board says that they will keep the school alive, if the students can raise $200,000. So the seniors go about doing this. Hmmm, you raise $200,000 but instead of saving that for college, you put it towards saving the high school that you are a Senior in? And why exactly would they close an overpopulated school before the year is out? And...ahh forget it, this film was stupid and made in 1989!?

Catch Me...if You Can's story doesn't make a lot of sense, the class president of a high school gets the local race king to race to save the school that's going to close down. But they loose all the money and get into a timed race across town like a local legend "Fast Freddie" did back in the day. Yeah. But the movie has a fun, goofy tone and is sort of a send up of 50's Hot Rod pictures, like "The Wild Ride," none of the young actors are particularly good, and everything about them screams the 80's but Geoffrey Lewis is always fun to watch, not to mention M. Emmet Walsh. It's directed by Stephen Summers of "The Mummy" and "Van Helsing" fame, which is interesting since pretty much all of his films hark back to a different old genre, "The Mummy" was classic movie serials and horror, "Van Helsing" was Hammer films, and Catch Me if You Can did Hot Rod flicks. But The Cars are the stars, the main guy drives a sweet '68 Chevelle takes the main role for much of the racing scenes, as it faces a beautiful orange and white '69 Camaro, a '68 Shelby Mustang, '71 Dart Sport, a Grand Prix SJ, and a pretty goofy '79 Camaro with a big spider graphic on the hood, and after the dastardly M. Emmet Walsh destroys the motor in his Chevelle, Geoffrey Lewis turns out to be "Fast Freddie" and he lets him borrow his amazing '57 Chevy that was buried under the football field to run the race. Can you guess what happens? Not going to win any awards, but it's a good example of some automotive thrills.

But you certainly dont have to be a 1980's era high schooler to enjoy this flick. Filmed on a small budget in Minnesota for only $800k, it has a fairly polished, quality feel. Sure, it's a clumsy plot, but that's not why we're here, right? Good acting from the leads, REAL car chases (no digital fakery) and some clever comic bits all help to make this movie a hidden gem. And you get authentic, Midwest 80's... so be sure to pause on the "mall hair" at the high school gym rally, when hairspray ruled the world!

Its obvious that Hollywood took notice of Stephen Sommers directing chops for this little known picture (thank goodness, because it had catastrophic distribution issues in the US) Apparently these issues were not an issue overseas, where it took in $7 million. After this, he was cherry picked by the big studios and has had quite the career. So grab some popcorn, fire up your big screen, and enjoy a classic time travelin' romp back to 1989.

Not Bad Really, a lot of great Hot Rods and some fast Drag Racing as well. The Sound Track was good and the drag racing was excellent. I liked the way they brought back Fast Eddie from hiding from under the High School Football Field from years ago and dispelled the myth.

This film has been receiving a lot of play lately during the day on either HBO or Cinemax. The reason is that they are assuming people would be interested in comparing it to the Leonardo DiCaprio/Tom Hanks caper of the same name. The only reason to see it is for the attractive Matt Lattanzi. Yum! Although I must say Matt was more than a little long in the tooth to be playing a high schooler. If he were a woman, they'd have had him playing the MOTHER of a high schooler! (Is is just me, or is his daughter starting to look like Shelley Duvall?) Oh yeah, the plot--who cares? Typical teen highjinx played by adults.