Anthony Bannon (bannonanthony) I had wanted to see this film for years after seeing a video trailer for it. Now I have finally seen it. Yes, it is undeniably cheesy in parts, but I accept that fact and watch it for the fun. And this movie is nothing short of great. The plot is slim, but it works. The drag race scenes are all done brilliantly, set to a perfect synth score by the wonderful Tangerine Dream and the two main performances by Matt Lattanzi and Loryn Locklin as the reluctant lovers are very good. It's been a while since I've seen Locklin's later movie 'Fortress' so I had forgotten just how attractive she was. Her character, Melissa, starts out as a typical concerned high school kid, but blossoms into a hot mama by the end of the picture. This is the only thing I've seen Lattanzi in, but he handles the hero role very well.Veteran performers Geoffrey Lewis and M. Emmet Walsh are great as the kindly school principal and the evil loan shark respectively, and the rest of the villains, such as the sneering Dirk and Manney and evil racing driver the Widowmaker are all very colourful characters. It surprised me that Stephen Sommers, later known for the first two 'Mummy' films and 'Van Helsing' would start his career with this kind of film. We all have to start somewhere I guess, and 'Catch Me If You Can' was a good place to start for him, especially as he never even had to leave his hometown to film it.The high school kids seem like a bunch of jerks, but at least they later on admit they were and decide to actually do something about the impending school closure that Melissa and Principal Johnson are trying to prevent. Like another favourite film of mine, Charlie Sheen flick 'The Wraith', parents seem to be non-existent in this town. But the authority figure role is filled excellently by Lewis as Mr. Johnson. It is he who turns out to have been a high-school hero back in the 50s who steps in to help when all hope seems lost.The main attraction for me was the cars, of course. The star car role is filled by two vehicles: a lovely black '68 Chevelle driven by Lattanzi for most of the movie, and 'Fast Freddie' Johnson's '57 Chevy, which is brought out of retirement for the final race against the clock after the Chevelle is laid low by Walsh's thugs. There's also a wonderful quotient of American muscle cars present throughout. I also like in the movie how some depth is injected into the character of Dylan Malone, Lattanzi's character. He at first seems like your typical anti-authority James Dean type. It is, however, revealed that he drag races to try and earn himself college tuition money to get out of his currently dead end life. This makes the final battle against Walsh more poignant, as Malone basically agrees to become a slave to Walsh if he loses the final race.All in all, the film is by no means ever going to win any awards. But if you just want a great, fun, popcorn movie, this is one of the best of them. Please Stephen Sommers, dust this one off and give it a DVD release!

royiscool86 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.

Tiger_Mark 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!?

xavrush89 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.