Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can

2002

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writer: Jeff Nathanson, Frank Abagnale Jr., and Stan Redding

141 Minutes

This story is more than a kid running from the authorities. It’s more than a kid writing bad checks. It’s about a kid trying to run from reality. It’s a kid trying to get his family back together. Though he was a kid who stole, lied, and checked his way through the American system, he’s just a kid.

But boy, did he have fun.

Catch me If You Can is about Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) who successfully became a pilot, doctor, and lawyer, while sealing millions of dollars from banks around the world. In the process, he is chased by Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) who tries helplessly to be taken seriously within the FBI, while hunting down this “criminal.”

During his life, Frank gets tied up while being a doctor. He meets a girl named Brenda (Amy Adams) who he wants to marry. Upon meeting her parents, Frank tells another lie.

“I passed the bar in California and practiced law one year before trying my hand in pediatrics.”

Brenda’s father (Martin Sheen) offers him a position at his law firm, but now Frank has to pass the bar in Louisiana. He does, then gets an assistant prosecutor job in the film until the FBI shows up. He runs. And after Frank is found, tried, and being sent back to American for trial, Carl asks the question:

How'd you do it, Frank? How'd you pass the bar in Louisiana?

It’s the question that remains unanswered until the very end.

In the scene above, Frank has been offered a job in the FBI’s check fraud department and even though he runs the first chance he gets, he does return and finally commits to a life without crime. His father has let him down, his mother has moved on, and now all he has is his friendship with Carl.

Again, Carl asks: How'd you pass the bar in Louisiana?

He replies, “I studied for two weeks and passed it.”

Had Frank simply gone through life - played by the rules - he would have came out fine. But, it was the chase he loved. It was the chase that made him feel wanted. And the chase gave him the attention, approval, and validation, which Carl gave him, far past his estranged family.

Catch Me If You Can is a period piece based on one of the notorious criminals in recent history. He had fun with his money. He rode the wave of success. And he lived in the high life, well before he was 21 years old.

In life, we should all be so lucky to do a tenth of what Frank did, though legality makes it almost impossible.

It takes the chase to make it possible. And only Frank knows what that’s about.