Polished, Light-Hearted Crime Thriller About A Con-Man Par Excellence

Rating: 6/10 (8 January 2006)

Frank Abagnale Junior is a teenager in New York State in the sixties, having trouble coping with his parents' impending divorce. He runs away and becomes a professional con-artist, posing as an airline pilot, a paediatrician and a lawyer, and scamming millions of dollars' worth of phony cashier's cheques. Eventually however, reality comes crashing in on him, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
This is an amazing true story about a consummate escape-artist, who crammed a lifetime of criminal adventure into his teenage years, paid the price for it, and started a second life on the other side of the law. It's hard not to like Frank, who genuinely seems to care about people, and whose obsession with stealing and fooling the authorities is more of a behavioural aberration than a desire to get rich quick. DiCaprio is iconic in the lead, with excellent support from Walken as his beleaguered father and Hanks as the workaholic Fed on his case. The charm of the picture comes from the ingenious and increasingly sophisticated methods Frank employs to commit his forgeries and realise his fictitious personalities. There is also a wonderful attention to detail in recreating the mid-sixties atmosphere, particularly in the groovy title sequence and the playfully tense Bernard Herrmann-style score by John Williams. A slick, enjoyable chase film, based on a book by the real Abagnale, who acted as a technical consultant and has a cameo as a French cop. Shot in California, New York and Ontario.