HOT: Catch Me If You Can

In my opinion, Tom Hanks is the greatest actor in Hollywood. One of the things I admire so much about him is that even when he is not technically the star of the film, he still shines. This is really shown well in That Thing You Do, but you can definitely see it here as well.

Hanks plays Carl Hanratty in Catch Me If You Can - a definite top character in the film, but definitely not the star. No, that belongs to Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr. a 16-year old kid who leads Hanratty on a cross-country chase as he cons millions of dollars from  people and companies by forging checks.

Abagnale, Jr. is the son of Frank Abagnale (Christopher Walken), who gets denied a small business loan due to some issues with the IRS and eventually divorces his wife, Paula (Nathalie Baye), who is having an affair. When the two decide to separate, Abagnale, Jr. takes off and the fun begins.

He begins to pose as a Pan Am pilot, and then starts to forge fake Pan Am checks to the tune of 2.8 million dollars.

This of course begins to alert the FBI and Hanratty starts tracking Abagnale, Jr. - so much so that it becomes the only thing he wants to do.

Over the course of three years Abagnale, Jr. becomes a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer by forging documents and he conned millions of dollars along the way.

Still just a kid himself, Abagnale, Jr. tries to do most of this for the approval of his father - and soon tries to build a relationship with Hanratty with phone calls near Christmas time.

The film itself is based on a true story - and Abagnale, Jr. was one of the top forgers in the United States. He now works with the FBI in tracking down forgers.

DiCaprio and Hanks were absolutely amazing in their roles - and together they were even better. DiCaprio really carried the film as Abagnale, Jr. but Hanks was downright amazing playing second fiddle.

Grade:

6/50x2: Shutter Island

Hanks/Howard; Depp/Burton; DiCarprio/Scorsese.

Some actors and directors just seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. Leonardo DiCarprio seems to have found his in Martin Scorsese.

DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island, a private detective who has been asked to look into a missing inmate at Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane. Daniels is introduced to his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) as the two of them prepare to look for Rachel Solando.

Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) is the 'wardon' of the hospital, and Daniels uncovers that he and his partner, Dr. Naehring (Max Von Sydow), appear to be holding back a lot of information.

Also located on this island somewhere is arsonist Laeddis (Elias Koteas), who Daniels believes killed his wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams).

Located on the island is a mysterious lighthouse, where Daniels is given the impression that at this lighthouse lobotomies are performed on the patients at the hospital.

So many odd things happen during this film, but all are tied together in the end.

I love these type of movies - the type that keeps you invested, feeling that everything that you are seeing and everything that is said is important to the conclusion of the film.

I am not going to say anything else, just in case someone hasn't seen it, or no how it ends.

DiCaprio continues to impress me as an actor - I just wish he would let loose every so often and perhaps do a comedy. He is well-respected as an actor already - why not just have fun sometimes? He seems so serious all of the time with his charities and causes - crack a smile, buddy.

(NOTE: This was so hard to review. I can't really explain many of the details of the film - it just needs to be seen. So, this is a little shorter than usual.)

Grade:

4/50: Inception

There is nothing like a good mind f@#k in the morning. And that is exactly what Inception was able to do for me.

I had heard the praise. I had read the reviews, but I did my best to stay away from any possible spoilers. I still didn't think it would be as good as it was. It may have even surpassed The Dark Knight as Christopher Nolan's best film.

So, let me try and explain a little bit about what story Nolan is portraying. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are both able to move around inside other people's dreams. They are so good, in fact, that they are even - technically - thieves inside these dreams.

Cobb is a fugitive of the United States and really wants to return home to his two children. He is approached by a business man, Saito (Ken Watanabe), that promises him a safe return home if he can pull off something that is thought to be impossible - inception.

Saito wants his business rivals' son, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) to break apart the company once his father has passed away. The only way to do that is to go deep into Fischer's dreams and plant this idea so that he believes he has thought of it himself.

The way this is done is so crazy and imaginative that I won't even type about it - just go see the movie. I will only mention that the rest of Cobb and Arthur's team consists of Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao). Ariadne is the 'architect' who puts together the world inside the dreams - which again you need to see.

DiCaprio was incredible in his role as Cobb and once again I was blown away by Joseph Gordon-Levitt - he just continues to be one of the best young actors in Hollywood. It is sort of funny how in this film you end up truly rooting for the bad guys - it takes a great story and casting for that to work as well as it did.

Grade: