Year Released: 2002
Directed by; Steven Speilberg
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ton Hanks, Christopher Walken
(PG-13, 140 min.)
Genre: Action and Adventure, Drama

Frank didn't go to flight school...Frank didn't go to medical school...Frank didn't go to law school...because Frank's still in high school! –Tag Line

Remember when going to the movies was a welcome escape from times of turbulence and trouble instead of a nosedive into them? Well, Steven Spielberg did when he made this sunny film that is laugh out loud at times. It’s the perfect medicine, and Leonardo DiCaprio administers it with professional expertise.

Since, you know, being a doctor was one of the elite professions that the real life character DiCaprio plays conned his way into.

Based on a true story, Frank W. Abagnale was employed as a doctor, a lawyer, and as a co-pilot for a major airline company-all before reaching his 21th birthday.

Up until seeing this film when it was released in 2002, Different Drummer had not been a big fan of DiCaprio, but his sparkling portrayal here converted her. Just like the real man behind the role, DiCaprio takes the bit in his teeth and runs with it.

And because of Christopher Walken’s brilliant depiction of Frank Abagnale, Sr., we know where his son gets his chutzpah. Agbagnale Sr. is a born storyteller, and like most of them, he has told his narratives so often, his son can repeat them verbatim.

Of course, the most noteworthy is the story of how he met his beautiful French bride (Nathalie Baye). After WWII, while stationed in France, crowded into a social hall with 200 other guys, he sees the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

Also of note is the way he tells the story, dancing his wife around the Christmas tree and then dramatically dipping her toward the floor while he winks at his adoring son.

Two hundred other guys in the room, but he vows he will not leave France until she is his wife. And that is just what he does

All this occurs the night Frank Sr. wins the Rotary Club Man of the Year Award, establishing the high from which he will fall as the IRS pursues him for fraudulent tax returns, and he loses everything, including his prized French wife.

It is his parents’ impending divorce that unglues young Frank, who runs from the apartment like a frightened gazelle.

However the audience should not be too surprised to see the impoverished runaway soon get to his feet. He has already shown his ability to flip reality on its head and in his favor as he is harassed and bullied his first day at a new school. Things go on for a week until he is caught:

Principal Evans: Mr. and Mrs. Abagnale, this is not a question of your son's attendance. I regret to inform you that, for the past week, Frank has been teaching Mrs. Glasser's French class.

Paula Abagnale: He what?

Principal Evans: Your son has been pretending to be a substitute teacher, lecturing the students, uh, giving out homework, uh. Mrs. Glasser has been ill, there was some confusion with the real sub. Your son held a teacher-parent conference yesterday and was planning a class field trip to a French bread factory in Trenton.

So, it is a leap, but not one too far, to see our young Walter Mitty go from eying a handsome pilot to “becoming” one, complete with an authentic uniform and name card. Now the banks that would not cash his checks do so without a fuss. After soon after we see him with a bathtub full of model airplanes loosening their emblems, which he puts on the checks that now come from the Pam Am itself, with a much larger monetary limit. Soon he is into routing numbers and how to keep this check kiting from catching up with him for an even longer time.

It is not just the geometric explosion of his forging skills, but the man himself– or should I say manchild to be more accurate since he is still a teenager at this time – who carries it off. This excerpt is from the book upon which the film is based:

“Former police chief of Houston once said of me: ‘Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it ‘U.R. Hooked’ and cash it at any bank in town, using a Hong Kong driver’s license for identification.’”
― Frank W. Abagnale, Catch me if You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake

DiCaprio perfectly captures that brilliance and the inherent boyishness in several encounters with women. He is adept at conning a high class call girl into paying him for a shared night together – perhaps his first taste of intimacy – by offering to pay her with a cashiers check for $1400, when of course, the agreed upon price had been a mere $1000. She gladly pays him the difference in cash before the lovemaking.

DiCaprio quickly morphs into the adolescent then, wide-eyed as he tells her that this has been “the best date ever.” And of course, it is, since she has just paid him $400 cash for the privilege.

In an age before computers, he can create a Harvard Medical Diploma that impresses the small town hospital to take him on a resident, and then regurgitate dialogue from television hospital soap operas to get him through a few close encounters with actual emergency cases.

The same with Perry Mason reruns to coach him about legal maneuvers, but his actual Bar Exam results were not forged, or at least that is what he tells the patient FBI investigator, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).

Carl Hanratty: Tell me Frank How did you cheat in the bar exam?

Frank Abagnale Jr.: I didn't cheat, I studied for two weeks and I passed

Hanks is also a terrific supporting actor here, reprising the low key everyman role he seems to have been born to play. There is the same no nonsense approach as the one he employed in Bridge of Spies, the same core of decency that resonates from him in Captain Phillips.

Speilberg is wise enough to blend in some melancholy into his comic mix, a little like Shakespeare did with comic relief in his tragedies. One outstanding scene is between father and son at a fancy French restaurant where the now moneyed Frank takes his father. Frank Sr. seems down, so Frank prompts him into telling that same old story of that fateful meeting between his parents in wartime France.

The scene is very moving, but the story behind its filming is even more poignant.

The script calls for Frank Sr. to describe meeting his wife in France during the war ("Two hundred men, sitting in that tiny social hall, watching her dance ..."). Walken delivered the lines several different ways and then, on one take, without warning, became emotionally overwhelmed. "It was completely unexpected," DiCaprio said, "It wasn't in the script ... I thought the man was having a heart attack in front of me." Spielberg was blown away by the choice Walken had made for the character and the flawless way he executed it. That's the take they used in the final cut. –Eric. D. Snider

The same goes for the yearly Christmas telephone calls between Frank and his FBI Nemesis Carl Hanratty. Christmas Eve and Carl is alone in his office, the only one working on this night for families. Frank taunts him a bit about it, before Carl jabs back at him. Why is he calling his FBI opponent on Christmas Eve unless it is because Frank also has no one to be with himself.

Even if you have seen this film before, it is worth watching again. A delight that is sweet but not frothy, one that restores our faith in humanity just a bit. Now, when we seem to need it most.

–Kathy Borich
5 Drums

Film-Loving Foodie

Different Drummer’s most indelible image of Leonardo DiCaprio is him toasting us with a sparkle in his eye and cocktail in his hand, from The Great Gatsby.

But in Catch Me If You Can, DiCaprio plays a much younger guy, someone still in high school at the beginning of his infamous career as a con man. Before he was 21 he was employed as a doctor, a lawyer, and a co-pilot.

But while his exploits are outrageous, even when he is in the cockpit, he orders a pretty tame drink

TWA Stewardess: Would you like a drink after take off?

Frank Abagnale Jr.: Milk?

But let’s try something a little more adventurous here. Something for you to imbibe as you watch DiCaprio’s Frank Abagnale, Jr. worm his way into the lives of others.

You will love the Catch Me If You Can Cocktail, as daring and delicious as the film itself.