Catch Me If You Can

Frank William Abagnale, Jr. (born April 27, 1948), also known by countless aliases including "The Skywayman" is an American former check confidence trickster, forger and impostor who became notorious in the 1960s for passing meticulously forged checks worth about $2.5 million in twenty-six countries and all fifty U.S. States over the course of five years, all before he was twenty-one.

In 2002, Steven Spielberg made a film - Catch Me If You Can based on the life of Frank Abagnale, who successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars and became the youngest man to ever make the FBI's most-wanted list for forgery.

FRANK W. ABAGNALE JR.

Frank W. Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a sixteen years old high school student who finds himself emotionally cut adrift when his mother, Paula (Nathalie Baye) leaves his father, Frank Abagnale Sr. (Christopher Walken), after Frank Sr. is denied a business loan at Chase Manhattan Bank due to unspecified difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service. One day at school, Frank Jr. attempts to pass himself off as a substitute teacher and easily makes the subterfuge work. His small-scale success gives Frank some ideas and he soon discovers bigger and more profitable ways of hoaxing others, passing himself off as an airline pilot, a doctor and an attorney. Along the way, Frank learns how to become a master forger and uses his talent and charm to pass over 2.5 million dollars in phony checks. Frank's increasingly audacious work soon attracts the attention of an FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) who is determined to put Frank behind bars. Frank seems to enjoy being pursued by Carl and even goes so far as to call Carl on the phone to chat every once in a while. While posing as a doctor, Frank falls in love with a sweet girl working as a candy striper Brenda Strong (Amy Adams). When Frank asks Brenda to marry him, he decides to assume a new identity to impress her father, Roger (Martin Sheen) who happens to be the District Attorney of New Orleans, LA.

RETIRED FBI AGENT
JOE SHAYE

Carl tracks him to his engagement party where Frank has eventually admits the truth about himself to Brenda and asks her to run away with him in two days later after he left. But Frank realizes he has been set up when he sees Brenda waiting for him with agents in disguise and he escapes on a flight to Europe. A year-and-a-half later in 1967, Carl remembers from an interview with Frank's mother that she was born in Montrichard, France. He goes there and finds Frank and tells him that the French police will kill him if he does not go with Carl quietly. Frank assumes he is lying at first, but Carl promises Frank he would never lie to him and Carl takes him outside, where the French police escort him to prison. The real Frank Abagnale appears in the film as a French policeman arresting him to the car.

Frank is sentenced to twelve years in prison in the Federal Correction Institution at Petersburg, Virginia, in April 1971. In 1974, after he had served less than five years, the United States federal government offer Frank a deal by which he can live out the remainder of his sentence working for the bank fraud department of the FBI, which Frank accepts.

The ending credits reveal that Frank has been happily married for twenty-six years, has three sons and lives a quiet live in the Midwest. Since his release from prison in 1974, Frank has helped the FBI capture some of the world's most elusive money forgers and counterfeiters and is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on bank fraud and forgery. He earns millions of dollars each year because of his work creating unforgeable checks and to this day, Frank and Carl (retired FBI agent Joe Shaye) remain as close friends.

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors 

and mistakes and make amends for them. 

To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, 

but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character. 

Movie Trailer: