Catch Me if You Can
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- For other uses, see Catch Me If You Can (disambiguation).
| Catch Me If You Can | |
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| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Produced by | Steven Spielberg, Walter F. Parkes |
| Written by | Jeff Nathanson, Stan Redding, Frank W. Abagnale |
| Starring | Leonardo DiCaprio Tom Hanks Christopher Walken Amy Adams Martin Sheen |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Janusz Kaminski |
| Distributed by | DreamWorks SKG |
| Release date(s) | December 25, 2002 |
| Running time | 141 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $52,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 motion picture set in the 1960s. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and adapted by Jeff Nathanson loosely from the book by Frank Abagnale Jr. and Stan Redding.
The movie states that it was inspired by the true life story of Abagnale; the movie diverges somewhat from the real events as reported in Abagnale's book on his exploits.
It is also arguably Spielberg's most offbeat film. The film was a critical and commercial success and is well regarded for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. The lead actors were Leonardo DiCaprio (as Abagnale) and Tom Hanks (as his FBI pursuer), with a supporting role by Christopher Walken (as Abagnale's father). Williams and Walken were nominated for Academy Awards.
Tagline: The true story of a real fake.
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[edit] Movie plot
The film dramatizes the true story of Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young con man who stole over $4 million (worth about $20 million now) through forgery and other frauds, throughout a crime career lasting six years from 1963 to 1969. The film diverges from the protagonist's actual life story for dramatic effect.
The film is beginning with an FBI agent, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), arriving at a French prison in 1969 to meet an imprisoned and sick Frank. After a somewhat pointless attempt at another escape, Frank eventually gives in, saying “Let’s go home”. The scene flashes back six years earlier, to Frank and his mother Paula at an award ceremony for Frank’s father, Frank Sr. The next day, Frank Sr. cons a woman to lend him a suit for Frank Jr., who guises as a driver for Frank Sr. to get a loan from Chase Manhattan Bank. When the loan is denied (due to IRS tax evasions by Frank Sr.), the family is forced to move from their grand home to a small apartment, with tension building between the family. Frank Jr., during a point of feeling he will not fit in at his new school, poses as a substitute teacher in a French class, much to his mother's consternation and his father's silent admiration. Eventually, tension builds between Frank’s mother and father, and after seeing his mother with his father’s business partner, the parents file for divorce. Unsure of what to do or how to feel, Frank runs away from home, using checks that his father gave him. When Frank runs out of money, he tries to use his father’s con tricks to help him, but to no avail. Eventually, Frank’s cons get him success as he impersonates an airline pilot (secretly getting airline information from a pilot posing as a student interviewer). He ends up forging Pan Am payroll checks and after a small amount of time ends up stealing over 1.3 million dollars.
Meanwhile Carl Hanratty, an FBI bank fraud agent, begins to track down Frank with little help from his superiors, as most of them do not look at bank fraud seriously. While investigating a hotel, Carl discovers that Frank is in the hotel and runs into his room to arrest him. Not knowing who Carl is, Frank says his name is Barry Allen and that he is from the Secret Service, saying that he has just caught the perpetrator. When Carl asks him for identification, Frank calmly gives him his entire wallet and points out a blind man walking to his car as the man Carl was trying to catch. Carl is convinced and offers Frank’s wallet back, with Frank leaving it with Carl as he exits with the evidence. Pondering for a moment, Carl opens the wallet, revealing it to be filled with ripped up labels from bottles, and Carl realizes he has been fooled. Later, at Christmas, Carl is still working when Frank calls him, attempting to apologize for duping Carl. Carl rejects his apology and tells him that he will soon be caught, but laughs when he realizes that Frank actually called him because he has no one else to talk to. Frank hangs up, and Carl continues to investigate, suddenly realizing that the name “Barry Allen” is from The Flash comic books and that Frank is actually a kid.
Frank, meanwhile, has not only changed to becoming a doctor and being a lawyer (to which in the flash forwards Carl continues to ask how Frank cheated on the Bar Exam, and Frank gives no answer), but has fallen in love with a nurse, Brenda (Amy Adams), a Southern Belle who works with him in the hospital. It is to Brenda that he eventually admits the truth about himself and asks her to run away with him. Carl tracks him to his engagement party where Frank has left Brenda, asking her to meet him in two days so they can escape. Frank sees her waiting at the scheduled rendezvous time and place, but suddenly sees agents in disguise everywhere and realizes that he has been set up and escapes on a flight to Europe. Six months later, Carl shows his boss that Frank has been forging checks all over the Hemisphere and that he’s out of control, and wants permission to go to Europe to look for him. When his boss denies him permission, Carl brings Frank’s checks to professionals who deem that the check was printed in France. Remembering from an interview with Paula, Frank’s mother, that she was born in Montrichard, France, Carl goes there where he finds Frank, and tells him that the French police will kill him if he doesn’t go with Carl quietly. Frank assumes he is joking at first, but Carl promises Frank he would never lie to him, and Carl takes him outside, where the French police escort him to prison.
The scene then flashes forward to a plane returning Frank home from prison, where Carl informs him that his father has died. Consumed with grief, Frank escapes from his plane and goes back to his old house, where he finds his mother with the man she left his father for, as well as a girl that Frank realizes is his sister. Frank gives up and is sentenced to prison, getting visits from time to time by Carl. When Frank easily deduces the identity of a forger by glancing at some checks Carl is carrying as evidence, Carl gets an idea and calls his boss for an interview by the FBI. At the interview, Frank demonstrates an awesome knowledge of counterfeiting techniques and a deal is made. Frank will be allowed to serve out the remainder of his sentence working for the check fraud department of the FBI under Carl's custody, to which Frank accepts. Though enjoying his semi-freedom and professional job, Frank misses the thrill of the chase and even attempts to fly as an airline pilot again. He is cornered by Carl (demanding again how he cheated on the Bar Exam), who insists that Frank will return at the end of the weekend, since there is no one chasing him, and that he is just a kid.
On Monday, Carl is nervous that Frank has not appeared to work yet and is almost regretful at assuming too much about Frank. However, Frank soon shows up and Carl informs him about their next case. During the examination, Carl asks one final time how Frank cheated on the Bar Exam, to which Frank replies that he didn’t – he had studied for only two weeks and actually passed the exam. Astounded, Carl asks him "Is that the truth, Frank?" to which Frank merely smiles. Carl smiles back and the two continue to investigate their next case.
[edit] Awards
The movie was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Original Score (John Williams) and Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken).
[edit] Cast
- Leonardo DiCaprio - Frank William Abagnale Jr.
- Tom Hanks - Carl Hanratty
- Christopher Walken - Frank William Abagnale Snr., Frank's Father
- Martin Sheen - Roger Strong
- Nathalie Baye - Paula Abagnale, Frank's mother
- Amy Adams - Brenda Strong
- James Brolin - Jack Barnes
- Jennifer Garner - Cheryl Ann
[edit] Trivia
- Frank W. Abagnale himself has a cameo appearance on the movie as a French policeman, as revealed by the list of cast concluding the movie. Abagnale had sold the movie rights for his book in 1980.
- Gore Verbinski was originally going to direct the film, with Spielberg producing, but Verbinski had to leave the project at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts.
- James Gandolfini was originally set to play Carl Hanratty but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.
- The initial scene of the movie recreates the real Abagnale's appearance on the game show To Tell the Truth. New footage of DiCaprio and other actors replaces the original contestants, but the footage of host Joe Garagiola and panelist Kitty Carlisle is from the original show.
- The picture was filmed in just 56 days in early 2002 at more than 140 locations around the United States (New York, Los Angeles) and Canada (Montreal, Quebec City).
- One of the locations used was the old TWA Terminal 5 building at JFK International Airport in New York City, also called TWA Flight Center. The building, designed by Eero Saarinen, opened in 1962 and was an instant icon of architecture. It had been closed since TWA's demise in 2001. In 2005, construction started behind the famed terminal to incorporate it with JetBlue's new terminal. It is set to re-open in 2008.
- from BoxOfficeMojo.com:
- Film's reported budget: $52 million
- Est. Marketing Costs: $35 million
- Domestic Gross: $164 million
- Worldwide Gross: $351,112,395
- Leonardo DiCaprio was sick throughout most of the filming of Catch Me If You Can
- The movie is being remade into a Broadway musical, with the same choreographer and director as the Tony Award winning "Hairspray" and the second Steven Spielberg film to be adapted into a Broadway musical (after The Color Purple).
- This is one of the few movies in Tom Hanks' long movie career where he did not receive top billing; it was his first since 1988's Punchline that he took second billing (That Thing You Do! is another exception, since he wasn't a main character).
- The Simpsons episode "Catch 'Em If You Can" parodies the film.
- While at the end of the film, a title card informs the viewer that Carl Hanratty and Frank Abagnale remain "friends to this day," in reality, Hanratty is a fictional character.
[edit] Comparison with the book
Compared to the actual events described in Abagnale's book, Catch Me If You Can, the movie can be described as loosely based on true events. But it's also worth noting that the book itself was also loosely based on the true events for dramatic effects as well. Abagnale has praised the film, but he has admitted that it would be impossible to put five years of one's life on screen without taking out or adding details. According to him, the film is about 80% accurate to what happened in real life. The name of the protagonist and some of his exploits are the same as in real life, but the manner in which he achieved them has been changed.
While posing as a doctor, Abagnale left the hospital voluntarily in the movie. In real life, he was scared into leaving, after almost letting a baby die of oxygen deprivation (Abagnale had no idea what the nurse meant when she said there was a "blue baby"). Abagnale was able to fake his way through most of his duties before the final one, by letting the interns and nurses handle most of the cases that came in during his rather late night shift, such as setting broken bones and other such tasks. Many of his tasks were focused on the pediatric wing of the hospital (he had posed as a pediatrician), and most women coming in for delivery had their own physician on hand.
While posing as a doctor, in the book Abagnale has a romantic liaison with a nurse who is older than he is. In the movie, the woman he approaches appears to be a younger woman, maybe even a candy striper rather than a nurse. In the movie, he confesses all to the young candy striper/nurse, and asks her to run away with him, only to find at the rendezvous point that she has told the FBI and they are lying in wait. In the book, it is a different character, a stewardess girlfriend, who calls the police and nearly gets him arrested after he confesses to her.
One of his exploits covered in the movie, forging checks in France, shows Abagnale running the checks off himself. In real life, he had the father of one of his girlfriends print the checks. The father owned a print shop, but had no idea that he was printing unauthorized documents. Abagnale had given him a sample (real) Pan Am paycheck and the man duplicated them, with different numbers, but otherwise identical to the original paycheck (Abagnale told him Pan Am was thinking of switching check printers and wanted a sample run). The "sample run" he provided Abagnale contained 10,000 checks. Unable to use so many checks, Abagnale kept a small portion and discarded the rest.
The movie also dramatizes the capture of Abagnale in his mother's hometown Montrichard, France (outside the aforementioned print shop). The movie depicts this event with dozens of police and patrol cars appearing seemingly out of the ether and descending upon Abagnale. Abagnale in real life was captured in a grocery store in Montpellier, where he had gone to ground, by two uniformed police officers. The police were tipped off by a Pan Am stewardess who had been in the area and recognized Abagnale. In real life, he was arrested with little excitement. In the film Frank is taken from France back to the States. In real life Frank served time in Sweden before being released to the United States.
During his return to America, Tom Hanks's character, Carl Hanratty, reveals to Frank that his father has been dead for nearly two years. He had been trying to catch a train to go see his son, who was in jail, over in Europe, but he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck. This leads to an emotional breakdown by Abagnale and his subsequent escape from the plane. In real life, Frank found out shortly before his parole hearings and later release, but he was not allowed to attend the funeral since he was an escape risk. The film shows Frank fleeing the airport to his mother's house, only to learn that she has remarried and has a little daughter. Abagnale himself has stated that scene was created to emphasize that life has changed since he had gone, but in real life, his sister was two years younger than he was, and was also the daughter of Frank Sr. The real Abagnale, after escaping from the plane, made it all the way to Montreal and was attempting to board a flight to South America when he was apprehended.
In the movie, Abagnale becomes bored with his 9-to-5 job after his release from prison and goes off on another exploit. There is no evidence of it in the book (the book ends as Abagnale evades capture by the FBI after being deported from Sweden back to the U.S.). Most likely, the event is entirely fabricated. Abagnale did, however, escape both from the airplane that returned him to the United States and from the first prison he was kept in there.
The relationship between Abagnale and the FBI agent in the movie is never explored in the book. The book does discuss the main agent responsible for his case, but there was no contact between the two before Abagnale's return to the United States after capture.
[edit] Further reading
- Abagnale, Frank, with Stan Redding. Catch Me If You Can. 2005, Mainstream Publishing (paperback). 219 pages.
[edit] External links
- Official movie site
- Catch Me If You Can at the Internet Movie Database
- Catch Me If You Can at Rotten Tomatoes
- Abagnale's own comments on the movie, from the website of his company
- Article discussing the opening title sequence
- The title sequence on its creator's website (Flash required)
Duel • The Sugarland Express • Jaws • Close Encounters of the Third Kind • 1941 • Raiders of the Lost Ark • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom • The Color Purple • Empire of the Sun • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade • Always • Hook • Jurassic Park • Schindler's List • The Lost World: Jurassic Park • Amistad • Saving Private Ryan • Artificial Intelligence: AI • Minority Report • Catch Me if You Can • The Terminal • War of the Worlds • Munich • Indiana Jones 4 • Lincoln • Interstellar
