Catch Me If You Can

Directed by Stephen Sommers, Catch Me If You Can follows a teenager (Loryn Locklin’s Melissa) as she and a rebellious student (Matt Lattanzi’s Dylan) concoct an illegal scheme to raise money for their school. Filmmaker Sommers, working from his own screenplay, delivers a perpetually pedestrian drama that contains few wholeheartedly entertaining attributes, and although the earnest narrative does contain a small handful of compelling digressions and set-pieces, Catch Me If You Can does, for the most part, come off as a tiresome, sluggish misfire that feels much, much longer than its 106 minutes. It’s clear, too, that the seriously padded-out race that dominates the entirety of the movie’s third act is hardly as exciting or engrossing as Sommers has obviously intended, which does, in the end, confirm Catch Me If You Can‘s place as an earnest misfire that seems unlike even to appeal to its target demographic of younger viewers.

*1/2 out of ****