The mostly true story of a young man who fools pretty much everyone, and the FBI agent who is trying to track him down.

OK, I admit it: despite good word of mouth, I expected this one to be a real dog, mostly because of Leonardo di Caprio, whom I really really despise. And of course having Steven Spielberg's name all over it didn't whet my appetite a bit...but I thought, what the heck, let's give it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised...this was well worth my time, even clocking in at two and a quarter hours.

Firstly, I had heard it was a 'caper' flick, which always brings up unpleasant associations of Robert Wagner and the recent awful remake of Ocean's Eleven...but no. This movie was about a charming rogue, a young man who managed to convince people to believe him in all kinds of ways. Granted, Di Caprio is anything but charming...but he was good in this part. Just right for playing a 16/17 year old pretending to be an adult, but not having a clue how to live his life or really knowing how to be an adult. Tom Hanks is excellent as the kinda dorky FBI guy that's trying to track him down, and Christopher Walken plays Di Caprio's ne'er-do-well father, also excellently.

Altogether, not a lot of action, but I was absolutely riveted...watching the action unfold (cutting back and forth across two or three different time frames), seeing people falling for all these scams, seeing the scams themselves...it was fascinating, and the ending was (for me at least) unexpected and satisfying.

Catch it if you can, it's worth the time and money.