Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
A funny film about a faultless fraud, a perfect forger who manipulated bank checks and stole a real fortune in the 60s when he was not even out of high school and at the same time he impersonated all types of professions, pilot, doctor, lawyer, and many others all around the world, or nearly, and he ended up in prison in Atlanta for twelve years in total isolation. And yet the FBI who finally caught him in France got him out of the prison in which they had locked him up, because he was the best-qualified forger on the market and they needed him to catch as many of these forgers who were myriads and legions in those years when the two ways to pay for anything was either cash or a check. Very entertaining in a way though of course, the depth of the story is that you better be a good forger because then you will have a beautiful career in the FBI. The more advanced cases of fraud today is no longer forgers of checks but hackers. The best of these hackers are recruited to work for all kinds of security services, both public and private. It is good to be reminded at times that the worst frauds and the best forgers of anything, hackers or Internet fraud-artists, are often working for the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security or the big corporation like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. And with Artificial Intelligence it becomes ever easier to set up a scam of any sort that can access millions of computers in the world and create chaos here or there. At the same time, it is often a lot easier to counter such actions with Artificial Intelligence too. The attack from the USA against the nuclear centrifuges in Iran some years ago was identified and blocked by other hackers and AI specialists from Belarus, California and a couple more places.That should make us think twice before launching any propaganda against such frauds, actions, cyberwar acts, because if a digital system is attacked, it's because its security is underdeveloped, or if a social network is used to spread fake news or whatever rumors to influence public opinion here or there, it cannot be stopped nor prevented except with censorship, and even so there is always a way to go around this censorship and reach a disturbing objective here and there, in any country you can think of. Cybercrime and cyberwar are the prices we have to pay for cyberspace and cyber communication. It is better to build some efficient defense than to cry, yell and scream because after a while no one believes there is a fire in the house or there is a wolf in the poultry yard. Dr. Jacques COULARDEAUPrevious review on AMAZON.COM Society as a factory of criminals
By Dr Jacques COULARDEAU on March 31, 2003In this film Steven Spielberg wants to entertain us with a simple plot, a simple situation, a great chase around the world. He wants to entertain us with two characters who are highly attractive. The young man who becomes a criminal because his father is harrassed by the IRS and whose wife is stolen away by his best friend can easily become a symbol of fighting back, resilience, rebellion, intelligence against a system that tries to crush all those who may be antisocial, or just appear to be antisocial. The second character of the cop who is chasing this young man is just as attractive. Divorced, having lost wife and daughter, abandoned and isolated in his personal life, living the life of a hermit, of a monk of the law against crime, he easily becomes a father substitute to the young man and chases him with real paternal care and even maybe love. This relation between the criminal and the cop is amazingly reassuring. The young criminal becomes a hero because he attacks the economic system and is more intelligent than the businessmen and CEOs of this system. The cop becomes a hero because he is not viciously chasing a criminal he is ready to kill if necessary, but he chases him to protect him against his own desire to fool the system, and to give him the opportunity to really become « social » by using his talent and his intelligence against the criminals who attack the system. This will lead me to the conclusion on this point : this film is in a way a denunciation of the economic and political system that tries to destroy its opponents by all means available, including in their private life, due to a total lack of ethics on the side of the proponents of this system. Why does our system produce such a phenomenal highjacking of intelligence into crime ? But the film also has another interest. Leonardo Di Caprio reveals himself as able to impersonate many characters and personalities in this film and this is the proof that he is improving and developing. He is able to become, in the near future, a good and even great actor, provided his body and face are put aside and his acting talent is emphasized. That is all the more important because he is getting old and will no longer be able to play the handsome and lovable teenagers he has played so often. He is entering the real profession : he is enabled by this film to show that he can act with his soul and not only with his body.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
