Starring: Matt Lattanzi
          Loryn Locklin
          M. Emmet Walsh
          Geoffrey Lewis
         

     Catch Me...If You Can is an excellent example of a movie that could
have been crap but wasn't. The basic premise is standard formula: the 
local high school is about to go under and the only way to save it is if
the students raise $200,000 before the school closes. Melissa (Loryn
Locklin) is the class president who's at her wits end trying to get the
rest of the school involved in her fund raising efforts. Enter Dylan
Malone (Matt Lattanzi), a smart and streetwise high school student who
drag races in his spare time to secretly raise money to go to college. He
proposes and idea to Melissa: bet the school fund on one of his races and
make lots of money fast...minus a few incidental expenses.
     Starting to glaze over? I would have with a description like that. But
the truth is, CMIYC was saved by writer/director Stephen Sommers. Sommers
injected his particular brand of camp into this otherwise lame story. There
are moments in this movie where you cannot help but laugh out loud. If you 
watch the movie often enough (and I have, being a Loryn fan) you begin to 
notice little details. For example, at the beginning of every shot in the 
school, you can hear the same kid shout "Knock it off, you butthead!" in 
exactly the same way.
     Sommers is actually quickly gaining my fanship as well. His most recent
film, "Deep Rising" (not to be confused with "Deep Impact"), was very much
like CMIYC in spirit. He took a standard horror movie (a rip off of The Abyss
and Leviathan, in fact) and turned it into a very funny movie destined to be
a cult classic, IMHO. I've only seen one other movie by the guy, The Jungle
Book (live action). Not nearly so campy as the other two, unfortunately.
     Loryn Locklin is excellent in this movie as usual. She always comes 
across as a real person rather than a character.Perhaps one of her best 
scenes is when she has to break up a roadblock preventing Dylan from reaching
the finish line. When she figures out the best way to do it her facial 
expression is quite amusing...and not something most actors would do.
     For fans of Babylon 5, such as myself, Tangerine Dream does the music for
this flick and you can hear Christopher Franke's influence all over the place.
Also, the soundtrack contains all kinds of '50s music which actually becomes
a fairly important plot point.