At the start of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, we see FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) come into a very dank prison, in 1969. In his hand, he has an extradition order which took him two long years to obtain; he has been ordered to escort the subject of the extradition order, Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), to the United States. Abagnale is accused of check kiting and the fraudulent use of aliases (impersonating, in turn, an airline pilot, an ER physician, and an attorney - even passing the Louisiana State Bar exam after only two weeks' study).
After Hanratty chases an obviously sick Abagnale through a prison (not a difficult feat given Abagnale's clinical condition), Hanratty manages to shackle Abagnale, get him to a hospital, get him well, and put him on a plane to the United States. At this point, scenes of the two men on the plane to New York are interspersed with scenes of Abagnale's life both at home and on the run.
Abagnale's father, Frank, Sr. (Christopher Walken), is himself a con man who owes the IRS a very large amount of money. Frank, Jr., undeterred by his father's criminal behavior, idolizes Dad. In fact, Dad is his major male role model, even providing Frank, Jr. with ideas as to how to scam people - ideas used by Frank, Jr. while impersonating all those people.
One day, he comes home from school to find his mother with another man (played by James Brolin); although both of them have all of their clothes on, Frank, Jr. puts two and two together and gets four, understanding that the two of them are having an extramarital affair without Frank, Sr.'s knowledge. Not too long after that, he comes home to find what is obviously a man's coat on the couch of their living room, only to find out that the owner of the coat is a divorce lawyer asking him to choose which parent he wants to live with when Mom and Dad sign the custody papers. Frank, Jr. gets to fill in the blank with his personal preference of parent; instead, he chooses to run away from home at the tender young age of sixteen.
While on the run, he becomes an airline pilot, a chief resident in a Georgia ER and a real-life licensed lawyer. In order to support his habit of what amounts to identity theft, he becomes a proficient check kiter - so proficient, in fact, that the checks he produces with minimal equipment fool banks into thinking that the checks actually come from an airline's accounting department.
The rest of the movie becomes something of a cat-and-mouse game between Hanratty and Abagnale, and a fascinating one at that. Although Abagnale is the obvious bad guy, Hanratty is portrayed realistically, in a refreshing move for this genre. It is all too easy to go the route taken by the TV series The FBI, and portray all G-men as being somehow better than anyone else, if not perfect. Hanratty, however, is given the opportunity to commit several serious errors, at least one of which provides needed comic relief about 3/4 of the way through the film.
Abagnale is portrayed as being mature beyond his years; in fact, he is so intelligent that it is somewhat jarring to realize that he is not even old enough to order a cocktail during the course of this movie. One has to stop and remember that he is only in his late teens whenever he orders milk or a soda when in certain settings.
This movie, however, is not perfect. Other Epinionators have rightly commented that Tom Hanks' "Boston accent" is horrible. In fact, until I went into the Epinions.com database and glanced at some of the reviews, I didn't know he was trying to do a Boston accent; I thought Hanratty came from the South.
I also felt that CATCH ME IF YOU CAN is perhaps half an hour too long; there are places that likely could have been edited safely without losing continuity. Some spots simply drag, and could use the skills of a sharp editor.
Finally, astute observers might note that the score sounds, in places, like that written for the TV sci-fi series The Time Tunnel. Although both scores have the same composer (John Williams is credited as "Johnny Williams" in the Time Tunnel credits), The Time Tunnel and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN belong to two different genres, necessitating the writing of two different types of music. I felt that the similarity between a sci-fi score and a true-life police-procedural score should not have existed.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN is indeed a true story. Abagnale is understandably reluctant to reveal his exact location; the end credits simply state that he lives in the Midwest with his immediate family, for obvious crime-prevention-related reasons. His current job, however, is in the area of fraud detection and prevention, and forgery detection. DiCaprio does a superb job of bringing this aspect of Abagnale's expertise out, in scenes in which the FBI actually would ask him to come out to the visitors' area of his prison and discuss current forgery cases with them.
If you're a fan of police procedurals, I feel you might enjoy CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. I also found the whole cat-and-mouse-game aspect of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN fascinating. Given the overall quality of this film, I wasn't surprised that the house was packed when we went to see it.
Recommended:
Yes
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