Considering that Spielberg had always been a director that’s quick on his creative feet and able to get us to believe anything (UFOs! Dinosaurs! Liam Neeson with a German accent!), it’s actually quite a surprise that it took as long as it did for him to make a movie about an actual con man. Based on the semi-autobiographical book by Frank Abagnale Jr. and detailing his experiences as he blagged his way through multiple high-profile jobs and various cons and bluffs that amounted to millions of dollars, it gave Spielberg the chance to make himself an audacious comedy drama that was grifting it’s chaotic ass off long before Marty Supreme attempted to do the same.
Boasting a starry cast and cool 60s vibe, can the man who got us to fall in love with E.T. and fear a giant, rubber shark manage to convince us that Abagnale Jr. wasn’t just a sociopathic opportunist, but actually someone to genuinely root for? Remember, this Spielberg’s a convincing dude…
The year is 1969, and while Frank Abagnale Jr. awaits to be extradited from France back to the States by stern-natured FBI agent, Carl Hanratty, we flash back in order to get walked through the events that led both men to this point. We begin back in 1963 where Frank Jr. idolises a father who is quick to spring a con on people; but the trouble is that his skills end up being no match for the IRS who have some serious questions about his attitude for paying tax. As Frank Sr. sees his life slowly errode due to government pressure, his car business dry up and his cons fall short, eventually Frank Jr’s family implodes when his mother divorces his father.
Unable to deal with the shock, Frank Jr. runs away from home and soon discovers that he has quite a talent for pulling audacious scams himself. But while he starts off modest, bouncing checks and the like, it isn’t long before he starts pulling tricks so utterly brazen, no one would even conceive that someone might be pulling some kind of fast one. In an attempt to forge checks from Pan Am, his confidence scams make him go as far to pose as an actual pilot, complete with official uniform, ID badges and everything.
It’s at this point, the millions of dollars worth of scams has caught the attention of Agent Hanratty who, due to his unrelenting devotion to the job, has vowed to bring this “Skyway Man” in if it kills him. And thus starts a strange game of cat and mouse, where the prey keeps one step ahead by managing to cross over to ever more prestigious jobs by sheer charisma and balls alone. Pilot, doctor, lawyer, even a husband to be, there’s no line of work Frank is unwilling to impersonate if it means he can continue his bizarre lifestyle. But what drives a man like this? What leads him on a fanciful existence where, if he puts his mind to it, he can be anything or anytime he wants to be. Except honest, of course…
Once again, this website forces me to reveal my childish ignorance, but I’ve always gravitated more towards Steven Spielberg’s more genre related works. Stick an obtainer of rare antiquities, or a huge, wheezing Martian death machine in there and and I’m sold, but my love of the great man tends to fade whenever I’m presented with something of his that’s more closer to real life – and I guess there’s nothing closer to real life than an actual true story. But while there’s always going to be accusations of inaccuracies for this sort of thing (a memoir written by a con man?), the director uses the accounts of Frank Abagnale Jr. as a spring board to marvel at just how far someone can go if they believe in themself enough. The notion of a person achieving audacious things as the result of a traumatic family divorce is probably the most Spielbergian thing I’ve ever heard – even more so than witnessing people gawping in awe at something wonderous off screen.
In order to evoke the quick thinking of his lead character, the director keeps things light footed and moving fast, almost as if he’s trying to convince us all of a tall tale himself. Zipping through Frank’s formative years, he goes through various montages of Abagnale getting away with such staggering feats as convincing a class in his new school that he’s actually a French teacher and even goes so far to start planning school trips abroad. But once the divorce occurs between his mother and Christopher Walken’s struggling huckster, Frank Jr’s desire to escape into other world magnifies and it’s here where Leonardo Dicaprio takes over. While the man ironically can’t pass as a seventeen year-old to save his life (a daring con that even this movie can’t quite pull off), once the movie gets into full swing, Leo’s innate movie star charisma basically has you eating out of the palm of his hand as it translates perfectly to the notion that underneath all the money, women and bragging rights, there’s just a wounded little boy who wants his parents to get back together.
While anyone who has actually experienced fraud might not share Dicaprio and Spielberg’s idealistic view on this particular crime, it’s tough not to be impressed both by Abagnale’s gall and the fact that the film itself that never let’s things get too heavy while never letting it get too frothy either. Rounding out this little trifecta is Tom Hanks’ Hanratty, who capably leaps straight in and reminds us just how funny a movie’s straight man can be if it’s played just right. In fact, both he and Spielberg get a huge amount of mileage out of repeatedly having the FBI agent show up and have everything bang to rights, only for his impossibly slick quarry to slip through his fingers due to some miraculous loophole, and it never actually gets boring no matter how many times the movie pulls it.
There’s also something of a goldmine of female actresses to be found here as a lot of the supporting parts are made up of some famous faces who were on the cusp of breaking out. Amy Adams, Elizabeth Banks and Jennifer Garner in particular manage to make their mark in some form or another as Abagnale flits through their lives like a frivolous force of nature – but managing to almost steal the entire movie out from everyone is Walken who, in only a handful if scenes, is genuinely heartbreaking as the tragic, failed patriach. Add to this a fantastic Saul Bass style opening credits sequence, Spielberg fully embracing the time period (at one point Frank dresses like Connery’s Bond thanks to Goldfinger) and a typically mischievous score by John Williams and you’ve got yourself an awe inspiring adventure without a lumbering saurian, a voracious carcharodon carcharias or even a wide-eyed extraterrestrial in sight.
As innovative and versatile as its lead character, Catch Me If You Can sees Spielberg juggle big laughs (Frank doesn’t fare too well when he actually has to perform the jobs his faking) and genuine pathos to try and get in the head of a young man who literally had the world at his feet due to the powers of bullshit alone.
This genuine fake is real good.
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