The premise of Catch Me If You Can is interesting to say the least. The Spielberg directed biopic is based on the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr who pulls of a series of breathtaking and unbelievable but nonetheless credible in their execution scams, and all before his 19th birthday.
However this is also essentially the story of a young man who witness's his fathers business failure and consequently the break up of his happy family life, and accordingly sets out on something of a reactionary and desperate, but unattainable crusade to try and reclaim that which he has lost.
Leonardo di Caprio, in a Michael J Fox eternal youth stereotyping role, stars as the teenager who is pursued over a period of years by an FBI agent played by Tom Hanks who is determined to get his man no matter what.
The movie opens by setting the scene of the relationship between Di Caprio and his father, played by Christopher Walkin, whom the son obviously idolises. Early on we see Frank Abagnale Sr. being honoured by the local Rotary chapter but it soon becomes all to apparent that his success is not as it seems and in fact he is on the verge of bankruptcy and being pursued by the IRS for tax evasion. Things rapidly crumble leading to the Abagnale's losing their house and soon after the break up of the family when his Frank Senior's French wife leaves him for his best friend. Frank Jr, forced to choose between living with his mother of father, instead opts to run away and very soon realises an ability to graft and deceive people, more often than not women, based on his good looks, charm and, as he discovers, the awe and glamour in which the public hold airline pilots in 1960's America.
Frank Jr. starts by breathtakingly impersonating a Pan Am Co Pilot which, more than anything exposes the gullibility and trusting nature of people before an age of air terrorism. Buoyed by his success and the relative ease in which he manages to carry off his assumed role, Frank's rapid learning curve combined with the necessity to keep ahead of the FBI chase leads him to further roles as a James Bond type super cool sophisticate, A Night shift doctor and ultimately a State prosecutor. All through this he keeps in contact with his father holding out the vague hope that he can get his mother and father back together and all will be the same as before and the nightmare will end. As his star continue to rise and his daring reaches new heights his fathers conversely falls as he ultimately ends up working as a mail man to make things meet.
The most striking thing about this movie is how it develops each of the deceptions or roles he adopts, so that we start out finding it hard to see how he can carry off a role when he introduces the concept and yet as we are led through his deceptions the, ease and credibility of his performance and the naivety or unquestioning attitude of his audience carry us along and make us too see how he could have really pulled the trick.
In the end the movie does stretch on a bit in its telling of the story and introduction of additional supporting cast of a love interest and her father played by Martin Sheen so that the end product runs well over 2 hours but if you think you might be on for sitting that long it's worth a look.
I'd give it 3 stars out of 5 for tips on defrauding the corporate sector!
