Where Girls Started Falling in Love with Bad Boys: The Movies

Frank Abagnale’s storyis captured in the movie “Catch Me if you Can,” directed by Steven Speilberg. Frank was a con artist reported as having written $2.5 million in fraudulent checks. Speilberg’s direction of the film had his audience rooting for the “bad guy” despite his questionable moral character. Speilberg’s first move in eliciting sympathy was to cast Leonardo DiCaprioas Frank. While the real Frankmay have been charismatic, he was not on par with Leo’s good looks. Tom Hanks played Carl Hanratty the clumsy, loner detective hunting the good-natured fugitive who was scarred by his parent’s divorce and mother’s infidelity. (All these aspects were played up in the movie to drum up more sympathy for Frank.) That sympathy was heightened in the scene where Frank calls and Hanratty laughs at him, “You didn’t just call to apologize… you have no one else to call” (Catch Me if You Can). Throughout the movie we make allowances for Frank to cheat the system and con his way through life because he was sharp enough to pull it off. Speilberg figured out how to leverage Frank’s contrarian smarts to reel us in for a great movie. [1 image, 3 links, 1 quote, 201 words]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale