CATCH ME IF YOU CAN - MOVIE REVIEW

                            

                            

                                                                       

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN - MOVIE REVIEW

Barely 21 yet, Frank is a skilled forger who has passed as a doctor, lawyer and pilot. FBI agent Carl becomes obsessed with tracking down the con man, who only revels in the pursuit.

 

 

Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 Hollywood movie directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Jeff Nathanson, Frank Abagnale Jr. and Stan Redding.  The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen and Nathalie Baye.  The duration of the movie is 2 hrs 21 m.

 

The movie rating is 8.2/10*.

 

 

                                      

 

 

Catch Me If You Can is a biographical crime movie helmed and bankrolled by Steven Spielberg. The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Nathalie Baye in prominent roles. Catch Me If You Can is based on the life of Frank Abagnale, who before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Pilot. 

 

                          

SYNOPSIS :

In 1963, Frank William Abagnale Jr. lives in New Rochelle, New York with his father Frank Abagnale Sr. and his French mother Paula. During his youth, he witnesses his father's many techniques for conning people. Because of Frank Sr.'s tax problems with the IRS, the family is forced to move to a small apartment.

 

One day, Frank discovers that his mother is having an affair with his father's friend Jack Barnes at the Rotary Club of New Rochelle. When his parents divorce, Frank runs away. Needing money, he turns to confidence scams to survive and his cons grow bolder. He impersonates a Pan Am pilot named Frank Taylor and forges the airline's payroll checks. Soon, his forgeries are worth millions of dollars.

 

News of the crimes reaches the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Agent Carl Hanratty begins tracking Frank. Carl finds him at a hotel, but Frank tricks Carl into believing he is a Secret Service agent named Barry Allen. He escapes before Carl realizes that he was fooled.

 

Frank begins to impersonate a doctor. As Dr. Frank Conners, he falls in love with Brenda, a naive young hospital nurse. He asks her attorney father for her hand in marriage and also for help with arranging to take the Louisiana State Bar exam, which Frank passes. Carl tracks Frank to his and Brenda's engagement party, but Frank escapes through a bedroom window, telling Brenda to meet him at Miami International Airport two days later.

 

At the airport, Frank spots Brenda, but also plainclothes agents. He realizes she has given him up, then drives away. Re-assuming his pilot identity, he stages a false recruiting drive for stewardesses at a local college. Surrounded by eight women as stewardesses, he conceals himself from Carl and the other agents at the airport and escapes on a flight to Madrid, Spain.

 

In 1967, Carl tracks down Frank in his mother's hometown of Montrichard, France and manages to trick him into being arrested. He is incarcerated in a French prison in Marseille where he becomes very ill due to its poor conditions. Carl takes Frank on a flight back to the United States. As they approach, Carl informs him that his father has died. Grief-stricken, Frank escapes from the plane and reaches the house of his mother who now has a daughter with Barnes. Frank surrenders to Carl and is sentenced to 12 years in a maximum-security prison.

 

Carl occasionally visits Frank. During one visit, he shows him a fraud check from a case he is working on. Frank immediately figures out that the bank teller was involved in the fraud. Impressed, Carl convinces the FBI to allow him to serve the remainder of his sentence working for the FBI Financial Crimes Unit. Frank agrees but soon grows restless about the tedious office work.

 

One weekend, Frank prepares to impersonate a pilot again and is intercepted by Carl, who is willing to let him continue with his con, assuring him that no one is chasing him and that it's his choice. Frank returns to work and discusses another fraud case with Carl, who questions him about how he cheated at the Louisiana State Bar exam but Frank reveals that he studied and passed it, which makes Carl smile.

 

A postscript states that Frank lived for 26 years in the Midwestern United States with his wife, with whom he has had three sons, remains friends with Carl, and has built a successful living as one of the world's leading experts on bank fraud and forgery.

Critic's corner :

Top-notch, brilliantly crafted entertainment, rich with fascinating details, memorable incidents and engaging performances
What a terrific piece of film-making! From the charming animated title sequence (featuring John Williams's delightfully sneaky score) to the end, this is an enormously entertaining film from the gifted craftsman, Steven Spielberg, who is so damn good people take him for granted or resent his "manipulation," i.e. his seemingly effortless ability to create effective drama.

Leonardo DiCaprio (in his best performance that I've seen) stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr., a real-life teen-aged con man so spectacularly gifted that he was able to steal millions from various companies with forged checks, while successfully impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, among other guises. He is chased by a rigidly rule-bound F.B.I. agent, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), who is at first comically out-classed by the young improvising criminal genius; but the agent is steadfast and relentless and has the law on his side. The movie is filled with delightful supporting performances, starting with Hanks and continuing on with Nathalie Baye as the boy's selfish mother, Amy Adams as his immature fiancée and on down to the tiniest role. I'm especially grateful for the sympathetic part given to Christopher Walken, as the mischievous and spirited Abagnale Sr., whose life darkens as his fortunes fall. Walken is one of my favorite actors, but while I enjoy the occasional one-dimensional freak or villain he plays, I wish most of his parts were like this.

Spielberg's movie is rich with fascinating details and memorable incidents, while the script by Jeff Nathanson moves backward and forward in time to tell the story in the most engrossing way possible. This is top-notch entertainment.

Catch Me If You Can trivia

• Catch Me If You Can shows Frank Abagnale Jr. on the FBI’s most-wanted list. However, in real life, he never made that list as it is reserved for violent crimes only.
• Steven Spielberg advised Amy Adams to pretend that she was starving to death and eating a cheeseburger while kissing Leonardo DiCaprio to get the scene perfect.
• The FBI official who was chasing Frank was Joe Shea and he was the main inspiration for Carl Hanratty. However, Frank Abagnale Jr. used the pseudonym Sean O’ Reilly in his book as Joe was still working with the FBI.
• According to the real Frank Abagnale Jr., approximately 80% of his book was true. Catch Me If You Can was made by combining many characters from his book.

 

In my first edition of Johnny's Blog with 119 Blog posts (http://vjjohnson.blogspot.in), one of them was about Steven Spielberg titled "Catch Up With Me If You Can".   I was suggesting that nobody can beat his tally of Blockbuster Hollywood movies which is at least 146 in numbers.