Captivating movie !

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Made as a vehicle for the Dave Clark Five with the intent of capturing the success of the Beatles' Hard Days Night, this movie starts out looking like a surprisingly stylish knock off but turns out to be something very different; a melancholy and sometimes lyrical satire or mid-60s England.The band plays stunt men working on an ad campaign with it girl Barbara Ferris. While Hard Days Night was an ensemble, this movie soon becomes a road picture of Dave and Barbara headed to a deserted island. In rock-movie style they do wacky things, but they also find themselves traveling past rusted war machines and hobnobbing with stoners.It is very much a mid-60s English movie, generally reminiscent more of Richard Lesters' "The Knack and How to Get It" than his earlier "Hard Day's Night."The relationship between Barbara and Dave is neatly expressed in an early scene where Barbara imagines Gatsby-like parties on the island while Dave considers what supplies they would need. She is about the journey, he is about the destination, and his matter-of-fact manner contrasts with Barbara's poetic nature (at one point she says a deserted hotel "smells like dead holidays."The weakness of Catch Us If You Can is that it wavers between a surreal and satiric melancholy and the wacky burlesque of scenes like costume part that runs riot. While this feels more like a real movie than a band vehicle - unlike Hard Day's Night, which for all it's brilliance was a fairly plotless excuse for a bunch of songs), the band vehicle moments come through, most notably in the insistence of keeping the rest of the band around without every establishing their characters. While episodic and uneven in tone, the film should be considered a mid-60s counter-culture classic.

I remember what a big deal the city of Kenosha made when "A Hard Day's Night" played at the Orpheum downtown theater. "Having a Wild Weekend," on the hand, blew through the area before I had a chance to see it. I think I have watched the movie from start to finish maybe four times in forty years. I like the film but it's no "A Hard Days Night."1) The Beatles were far superior to the Dave Clark Five musically by the time the two movies were released.2) Ringo as a leading character is vastly more enjoyable than Dave Clark's moody Steve. 3) The Beatles played their film for comedy while the Dave Clark Five went for mood.4) The 4 Beatles had distinctive characters while the Dave Clark Five had one leading man and 4 bland supporting actors.5) A hard day's Night moves rapidly while "Having A Wild Weekend" drags much of the time.However, I still like "Having a Wild Weekend." Dinah was a cute little number and Steve had James Bond-like qualities. The costume party scene was a rave. The hippies being rounded up by the British army was a foreshadowing of the near future.

Reading the other reviews is like a visit to Private Eye's Pseud's Corner. Come On. As someone who lived through 60s London I can't believe all the hype and drivel spoken about this poorly constructed movie. It's cheap and nasty. The sound is appalling, and yes, despite the other protestations to the contrary, it's merely a poor rip-off of Hard Days Night. It has no style, no panache and sweeping shots of London Traffic Signs is hardly art. Not even worth seeing it through. I thought "Mrs Brown YOu've Got a lovely Daughter" was dire. This is even worse. If it was supposed to be a witty look at the Swinging 60s then it failed miserably. If it was supposed to be avant garden, then who was the intended audience? I'm finding it hard to find anything more to share about this movie. I certainly wouldn't waste any money renting this piece of drivel. We caught it on TV and rather wished we'd not bothered. Save your time. Watch something else

I'd heard a lot about this film before I ever had the chance to see it. I was predisposed to be dismissive.However, when I finally DID see it, I was taken quite aback.The director, John Boorman, is very negative about this film in his recent autobiography. I must disagree. There is a lazy school of thought that sees this movie as a straight rip-off of "A Hard Day's Night". Again, I dissent.When I sat down to watch this film I expected something approximating to the stock descriptions: derivative, formulaic, just going through the motions.I was quite unprepared for the reality of "Catch Us If You Can", which is a far more challenging and rule-breaking movie than its reputation would suggest. (I can only suppose that some people see what they expect to see.)It surprised me that a vehicle for a pop band should be so downbeat and thought-provoking. Another IMDb reviewer rightly drew attention to the wintriness of this film.There are two vital encounters in the film, once Steve (Dave Clark) and Dinah (Barbara Ferris) have fled from the TV commercial they are meant to be filming. The first is with a collection of hippie-esque drop-outs hiding out in rural ruins, the second with a middle-aged couple in a large townhouse in the affluent spa-town of Bath.Their moves are monitored at a remove by a sinister advertising man, Leon Zissell, who seems to have a Svengali-like preoccupation with Dinah. To this end he dispatches two henchmen to pursue the errant couple. The elder of the two (not THAT old, as somebody remarks - probably in his mid-30s) is loyal, but at a fancy dress party in Bath his younger colleague readily succumbs to the charms of a pretty young lady.I could try to encapsulate the plot of this film, but what matters far more is its atmosphere. Steve and Dinah are travelling (initially in a stolen E-Type Jag) towards an island off England's Devon coast that Dinah - young and successful - is contemplating buying. (This island conceit must be a straight lift from "La Dolce Vita", where the actress Marcello Mastroianni's character is "servicing", dreams of buying just such an island.)The soundtrack is surpisingly strong. There are some straightforward songs from the Dave Clark Five, but otherwise they strive to provide something less stamped with the band style.Like one of the other IMDb reviewers, I would have to agree, having seen this film, that it is actually stronger, viewed simply as a film, than "A Hard Day's Night". (Where it obviously falls down is the fact that its soundtrack - excellent as it actually is - is NOT by The Beatles.)Don't patronise this movie, or damn it with faint praise. Don't condemn it for not being what it isn't (a Beatles film), but rejoice in the boldness of its departure from the Cliff-Beatles formula.The scene in Bath with Robin Bailey and Yootha Joyce is worth the price of admission alone!