Synopsis:
Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 crime comedy film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. It is a chasing drama during the course of the 1960s between a teenage con man, Frank Abagnale, Jr. played by Leonard DiCaprio, and an FBI agency, Carl Hanratty played by Tom Hanks.
Frank is the only son of a family living comfortably in New York. His father, Frank Sr., is a long-serving Rotary Club member and runs a stationery business. He is happily married to his French wife Paula. They are the perfect family, one would say, until the father gets himself in some tax trouble.
As the family have to move somewhere less expensive and live modestly, things start to fall apart, and one day, Frank learns to his dismay that his mother is having an affair with a friend in the Rotary Club, which eventually leads to a divorce. In the face of the choice between the father and the mother, Frank chooses to literally run away from the whole problem. Being penniless, Frank forges a check and disguises into such figures as a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, well, anything, really, that isn’t Frank Abagnale, Jr. himself, penniless, parentless and loveless.
As a kid, Frank has witnessed his father often using little tricks to win people to his way of thinking, and he has really admired them. Apparently, that talent runs in the family. With this ability, paired with Frank’s natural intelligence, Frank flourishes as a con man while on the run from the FBI.
After the family’s financial crisis followed by his parents’ divorce, Frank internalises the idea that money is what connects people. This cannot be felt more acute than in the scene where he meets an attractive woman at a hotel. They seem to fall for each other but just when they are about make out, the woman asks for money for the night to be spent together. This hits Frank as a slight shock because of his naivety.
While he is impersonating a doctor, Frank meets another girl, a naïve nurse called Brenda, not the kind of girl Frank is likely to fall in love with. Love does grow between them, and Frank eventually gets engaged with Brenda, ready to finally have his happy family life restored in a new place. On the day of their engagement party, however, Frank learns Carl has tracked him down. Seeing that he cannot stay there, Frank reveals his true self to Brenda and makes a promise with her to meet at the airport to run away together, assuring her that they will never be short of money. Ironically enough, money doesn’t solve the problem. At the airport the next day are Breanda and plain-clothed FBI agents; yup, she has betrayed him. That scene was really touching as you know that Frank was being truly serious this time.
Money may have a part in keeping love, but can it be the sole panacea for any problems? Apparently not.
＊＊＊＊＊＊
I read a few reviews beforehand to collect some vocabulary that might be useful for writing this article, and one of the reviews described the film as a kind of Tom and Jerry film, which I think is well put. At the core of the whole chasing game is Frank’s desperate need of and search for love. As we have seen so far, Frank seems to think that money is a big thing in keeping human connection.
The question is, why does he make money in such a way as deceiving people?
If money is what he really needs, he could have simply done so by a legitimate means. I mean, and spoiler alert here, he is capable of passing the bar exam (for those who don’t know what the bar exam is, apparently it is an exam to become a lawyer) without going to law school. What you need to know here is the fact that Frank is, really, only a kid. The chasing may have started off initially to get away from the harsh reality, but it becomes sort of a game for Frank. There is a kind of bond between Tom and Jerry, and so is there between a lonely human Frank and another lonely human Carl. (I will not go into detail, but Carl’s family life is pretty messed up, too.)
Remember the time when you were a kid, and you tell an innocent lie to adults, knowing that it’s an obvious one, but you keep doing so to get their attention? I think that is essentially what is happening here. As long as the chasing continues, Frank can be sure that at least one person cares about him in some way, and Carl is that one person. It would be too sad if you were playing a chasing game with someone and the person suddenly gave up the game and left you alone. You would want the chaser to catch you in the end. Carl never gives up catching Frank despite his colleagues’ discouragement. He becomes a fatherly figure for Frank. The last airport scene is symbolic: where Frank makes an attempt at running away impersonating a pilot again (spoiler alert again, Frank has served four years in prison at this stage before taking the job specialising in fraud at the FBI, which Carl arranged for him) and Carl catches up at the airport. To quote from the scene:
[Frank stops, Carl catches up]
Carl Hanratty : I'm going to let you fly tonight, Frank. I'm not even going to try to stop you. That's because I know you'll be back on Monday.
Frank Abagnale, Jr. : Yeah? How do you know I'll come back?
Carl Hanratty : Frank, look. Nobody's chasing you.
‘Nobody is chasing you’ because there is no need for it anymore. Frank may have been good at making people trust him with his deceptive devices, but Carl has earned Frank’s trust by being honest with Frank through and through. By showing his trust for Frank, Carl finally gains Frank’s trust. I think that is the real ‘catch’ moment.
＊＊＊＊＊＊
Recently I have been kind of disillusioned with new films in general not because the films themselves are bad (I haven’t got the time to watch them in the first place so I’m in no position to judge) but because the idea of consuming new films for the sake of consuming them puts me off a bit. So, I am more and more inclined to watch classic movies because they are guaranteed to be superb. There is something comforting about the idea of watching classics, don’t you think?
I am glad to tell you that Catch Me If You Can was a successful choice in that respect. I enjoyed it a lot and I think it is worth a rewatch. It’s just short of two and a half hours, but it’s very well-paced and I can assure you that you really don’t feel the length.
On a side note, I think Leonardo DiCaprio did a great job in handling both the roles of the kid Frank and the adult Frank.