Catch me if you can

“Catch me if you can” is a movie I watched couple of days at home while the whole world is fighting against Covid-19 virus by staying at home.

Rated 8.1 in IMDB, the film stars Leonardo Dicaprio and Tom Hanks, 2 of my favorite actors.By looking at its name, instantly, you may feel like it is a movie about Crime. However, after watching the movie, I believe it is more like a movie which promotes the honesty and family value.

The movie starts with a family. Teenager Frank William Abagnale (I will call him Frank in this article) lives in New Rochelle, New York with his father Frank Abagnale (I will call him Frank Sr. in this article), and French mother, Paula in 1963. At that time, Frank Sr. encounters some issues with IRS (tax organization in USA, just like CRA in Canada) and the entire family is forced to sell their big house and move to a small place. Frank Sr. tries many ways to solve this, but mostly by cheating and lying, which Frank learns from his father. For example, Frank Sr. uses a gold necklace to cheat the store manager to open the door earlier, and later on, Frank uses the same trick to lure a flight attendant to have a one-night affair with him.

When Frank moves to a new high school, he pretends to be a substitute teacher. This is discovered later and his Father and mother are brought to the school by the principle. To my surprise, the father smiles at his son when the family walks out the principle office. His father Frank does not discipline his son, and the smile indicates a silent agreement with his son’s behavior or at least it means “my son, this is not a big deal”.

After this, Frank goes on and on. He impersonates an airline pilot and forges Pan Am payroll checks. Soon, his forgeries are worth millions of dollars. He later impersonates to be a doctor and a lawyer, and many are cheated by him, including a naive girl Brenda, who works as a hospital worker, and even his father, who has doubt in Frank, but finally agree the marriage between Brenda and Frank.

In the meantime, FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Stared by Tom Hanks) begins tracking Frank. Frank tries to escape from Carl, and he succeeds many times in this cat-chase-mouse game. Finally, Frank is caught. 

After finishing watching the movie, couple of scenes lingered in my mind.

One is that Frank looks so happy when watching his father and mother dancing in the living room when everything is still fine.

The second scene is that Frank, when making a lot of money by forging and making fraud checks, he invites his father to a fancy restaurant and tells his father that he wants to win everything back for his father: his mother, the house, and the happy family life.

The third scene I remembered vividly is that when Junior Frank is with the FBI agent Carl in an airplane, Carl tells him that his father has died. Frank almost goes insane, and he locks himself into a toilet in the airplane, punching the walls, and cries desperately. I believe at this point, he realizes that his dream of saving this family is finally broken.

One thing I want to mention is that the movie is actually based on a true story. For those who do not like sad stories, I want to assure you that the movie has a happy ending with Frank stopping cheating, and finally leading a righteous and normal life. How the story ends is very fascinating. 

Later on, I also discovered that this movie was directed by Steven Spielberg, because the true person Frank Abagnale in the real life believed that only Steven would be able to tell this fantastic story in the movie format.