''Catch That Kid'' is a 2004

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

action comedy film The action comedy is a film genre that applies to action films where humor plays a much more central role. While early films feature stuntwork and humor, academic Cynthia King wrote that the genre only came into its own as a mainstay of the Americ ...

directed by Bart Freundlich, written by Michael Brandt and

Derek Haas Derek Haas (born June 30, 1970) is an American writer and producer. Life and career Derek Haas attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he earned both his Bachelor of Arts, B.A. and Master of Arts, M.A. in English Literature. He lives ...

, and starring

Kristen Stewart Kristen Jaymes Stewart (born April 9, 1990) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and a César Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe ...

Corbin Bleu Corbin Bleu Reivers ( ; born February 21, 1989) is an American actor and singer. He began acting professionally in the late 1990s before rising to prominence in the late 2000s for his leading role as Chad Danforth in the ''High School Musica ...

, Max Thieriot, Jennifer Beals, Sam Robards,

John Carroll Lynch John Carroll Lynch (born August 1, 1963) is an American character actor and film director. He first gained notice for his role as Norm Gunderson in '' Fargo'' (1996). He is also known for his television work on the ABC sitcom ''The Drew Carey Sh ...

, and

James Le Gros James Le Gros () (born April 27, 1962) is an American actor. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his role in '' Living in Oblivion''. Career Le Gros starred in Gus Van Sant's film ''Drugstore Cowboy'' ...

. It is a

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same s ...

of the Danish film '' Klatretøsen'' (2002) and tells the story of three kids who rob a bank to obtain the money to pay for the expensive and experimental surgery needed for the father of one of them when the insurance company and the bank president won't help his wife. The film's working titles were ''Mission Without Permission'' (also the film's British title as well as part of one of the taglines), ''Catch That Girl'', and ''Catch That Kid!'' The film received negative reviews.

Plot

Madeline Rose "Maddy" Phillips is a 12-year-old girl who loves to climb, often ascending the nearby water tower. Her father Tom shares her passion but fell more than 100 feet during a climb years earlier. Tom and his wife Molly are afraid Maddy may suffer a similar accident and have forbidden her from climbing. Latent injuries from Tom's fall have recently paralyzed him from the neck down. The family hears of an experimental operation which can save him, but insurance will not pay for the operation and the family does not have $250,000 for the treatment. Harderbach Financial's president Donald Brisbane refuses to loan the amount, despite Molly being employed by the bank to design a security system. Maddy comes up with a plan to rob the bank for the money with her knowledge of her mother's system. Maddy steals three

go-kart A go-kart, also written as go-cart (often referred to as simply a kart), is a type of small sports car, close wheeled car, open-wheel car or quadracycle. Go-karts come in all shapes and forms, from non-motorised models to high-performanc ...

s from her father's racecourse and recruits her two friends Gus a young mechanic, and Austin a computer geek and aspiring filmmaker, to help her. To convince them, she separately tells each one she loves him and gives him one-half of her friendship necklace. They break into Harderbach Financial on the night of a party Brisbane is throwing, bringing along Max, Maddy's infant brother, whom she is supposed to be babysitting. Maddy distracts the security guards Ferrell and Gus' older brother Chad. Maddy and Gus progress to a room with thousands of security deposit boxes while Austin watches Max and manipulates the cameras and alarms to keep the guards away from them. After a sudden equipment failure with her climbing gear, Maddy is forced to free-climb the rest of the way up to the main vault containing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Upon reaching the vault door, she accidentally triggers a timer, then with seconds left, cracks the code ("Madeline"), grabs $250,000 from the vault, and flees the room, unintentionally setting off the alarm after forgetting to type the exit code. The trio manages to escape the bank's

Rottweiler The Rottweiler (, , ) is a breed of domestic dog, regarded as medium-to-large or large. The dogs were known in German as , meaning Rottweil butchers' dogs, because their main use was to herd livestock and pull carts laden with butchered mea ...

s and re-escapes Chad who tasers Ferrell, but then lets them go before accidentally tasering himself. Molly arrives at the bank and Brisbane accuses her system of being useless and fires a Phillips family friend and bank employee Hartmann. Brisbane's guest Francois Nuffaut apologizes to Molly and redirects the blame onto Brisbane for throwing a party at the bank before the security system was operable. Gus and Austin find out that Maddy played them after seeing each other's necklaces and leave her, but the trio reunites during a police chase and evades them successfully. Maddy and her friends go to the hospital with the money to pay for the surgery, but Molly realizes who the thieves are (through the amount they stole being equal to that of surgery costs and the climbing gear Maddy left in the vault) and intercepts them. Molly realizes her daughter was only doing what she thought was right for her father and does a cover-up by telling the bank executives that the robbery was an unplanned test she performed as chief of security. As they leave, reporters outside the hospital give the public the full story. Molly forgives Maddy for her actions. The public and the news studio sympathize with the Phillips family and donate money for Tom's surgery. Brisbane is fired; Hartmann is promoted to bank president and gives them the loan. Three months later, Tom has recovered from the surgery. Maddy, Gus, and Austin continue to argue playfully about who will be a better boyfriend for Maddy.

Cast

Production

Mara Wilson Mara Elizabeth Wilson (born July 24, 1987) is an American actress. As a child, she played Natalie Hillard in the film ''Mrs. Doubtfire'' (1993) and went on to play Susan Walker in ''Miracle on 34th Street (1994 film), Miracle on 34th Street'' (19 ...

revealed she auditioned for the role of Maddy Phillips, despite knowing she was too old for the role, in a 2016 article written by the actress for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''.

Reception

Box office

''Catch That Kid'' opened at #6 in the weekend of February 6, 2004, raking in $5.8 million in its first opening weekend. The film spent two weeks at the U.S. box office top ten. The film made $16.7 million in the United States and $226,963 in other countries for a worldwide total of $16.9 million, against a budget of $12 million.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film received an approval rating of 13% based on 86 reviews and an average score of 3.82/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "An unimaginative heist movie aimed strictly at the preteen set." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film holds a score of 33 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Critics overall expressed dislike towards the film's questionable morals and lack of originality, comparing it unfavorably to the ''Spy Kids'' trilogy. Despite these negative reviews,

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

of Ebert & Roeper and the

Chicago Sun Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

gave ''Catch That Kid'' "thumbs up", stating that it lacks the flash of '' Spy Kids'' and is more fun than '' Agent Cody Banks''.

Novelization

novelization A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book, or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent ...

of the story was released in conjunction with the film. The novel was written by Suzanne Weyn, Michael Brandt, and

References

External links

* * * * {{Bart Freundlich 2004 films 2000s adventure comedy films 2004 crime comedy films 2000s heist films 2000s teen comedy films American adventure comedy films American children's comedy films American teen comedy films American crime comedy films American heist films American spy films American remakes of Danish films English-language German films German spy films German adventure comedy films English-language Danish films Danish comedy films 20th Century Fox films Films directed by Bart Freundlich Films scored by George S. Clinton Films shot in Los Angeles Films set in Los Angeles 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2000s German films English-language crime comedy films English-language adventure comedy films Films based on works by Erlend Loe