Stax here with my reaction to the screenplay for Catch Me If You Can! This 132-page draft dated February 25th, 2000 is by Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2, Speed 2: Cruise Control). It is an adaptation of the 1980 bestseller Catch Me If You Can: The Amazing True Story of the Most Extraordinary Liar by Frank Abagnale, Jr. and Stan Redding. Leonardo DiCaprio has long been attached to portray Abagnale in this darkly comic biopic, which Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules) is in negotiations to direct. The film was almost made this past February with Gore Verbinski (The Mexican) in the director’s chair and with a supporting cast that included Ed Harris, The Sopranos’ James Gandolfini, and Chloe Sevigny (American Psycho). Unfortunately, due to delays on the set of Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, which Leo is also starring in, Catch Me If You Can fell apart. Verbinski has since moved on to other projects. It is doubtful that any of the original supporting cast will be reassembled once shooting begins on Catch in March 2002. Catch Me If You Can will be produced by Barry Kemp (Patch Adams), Michael Shane, and Tony Romano. DreamWorks SKG will release the picture during the fall of 2002.

Catch Me If You Can is the autobiography of Frank Abagnale, Jr., one of the world’s greatest con men and scam artists, and the youngest individual ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Catch follows Abagnale (DiCaprio) during the years 1964 to 1974, beginning with his youth in New Rochelle, New Jersey and on to his time as the nation’s most hunted “paperhanger” (a check forger and counterfeiter). (The media dubbed Frank "the Skywayman".) The story climaxes with his capture and imprisonment in France and ends with his acceptance of an offer made by the FBI – the very organization that hunted him for years – to work for their Fraud Division. Today, Frank Abagnale, Jr. runs the successful security firm Abagnale and Associates. His innovations have helped improve banks’ security measures against fraud. Ironically, Abagnale, who once bilked these very banks for millions of dollars, has now made a legitimate fortune off the patents to his security measures. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

	Leonardo DiCaprio

The first act of Jeff Nathanson’s script explores what drove young Frank to a life of crime. Frank goes on the run after he learns that his beloved parents are divorcing. Alone and broke, Frank takes to bouncing checks for cash, then moves on to forgery, and eventually to counterfeiting. Soon, Frank is pretending to be a Pan Am pilot so that he can comp free airplane rides, cash bogus Pan Am payroll checks, and stay at fancy hotels along with the other airline crews. After that, Frank assumes the role of an emergency room supervisor at a Georgia hospital by forging a Harvard medical school degree. Frank soon falls in love with a candy striper named Brenda (Sevigny?) and they run away together to her native New Orleans. There, Brenda’s dad takes a shine to Frank, who claims to have graduated from UC Berkeley law school and passed the California bar exam before turning to medicine. Proud that his daughter’s engaged to such a distinguished young man, Brenda’s dad makes him one of his assistant prosecutors. Frank even manages to somehow pass the Louisiana bar exam!

Frank’s wild ride then begins its tragic descent. Pursued by no-nonsense, dogged G-Man Joe Shaye (the role Gandolfini would’ve played), Frank manages to stay one step ahead of the law. He even teases Shaye with phone calls and post cards (remember, Frank is still just a smart-alecky teenager). The two foes actually have more in common than they care to admit; both spend Christmas alone (they actually speak on the phone), they’re alienated from their families, and they live for the hunt. Joe sympathizes with Frank, seeing him as a ne’er-do-well kid. Yet Joe can’t afford to be made a fool of by Frank, who manages to keep eluding the FBI’s traps. Ultimately, Frank’s pursuers will prove to be his salvation rather than his doom. I haven’t read the original book (although I plan to now) but from the reactions I’ve seen, one of the biggest gripes that people had was with its abrupt and unsatisfactory finale. The consensus seems to be that Abagnale and co-author Redding didn’t sufficiently explain Frank’s downfall and his transition to working for the FBI. Nathanson’s script, however, did a good job in depicting why the FBI approached Frank and how the youthful offender struggled with making the leap to being on the G-Men’s payroll.

Jeff Nathanson’s Catch Me If You Can is the best script I’ve read in months. It is a thrilling, engaging, and amusing page-turner about someone you should not like but can’t help but be amazed by. Frank’s audacity and cleverness make him one of the most appealing anti-heroes I’ve come across in quite some time. The character evolves from being a good-natured but mixed-up boy to a calculating criminal fugitive. Nathanson’s script is at its best when it explores what made Frank such a master liar and cheat. While not necessarily blaming Frank’s parents Paula and Frank, Sr. (Ed Harris’ role?) for making him what he is, the script paints a very heartbreaking picture of their dysfunctional relationship and how that influenced young Frank. (Stax note: Frank’s mom, Paula, is from Europe so perhaps director Hallstrom will cast his wife, actress Lena Olin, in the part?)

	Frank Abagnale today

The lies began with Frank’s parents, starting with the reasons for why they married, to how much money they had, to the “solidity” of their marriage. Both parents pretended to be more than what they really were. Their lies hurt Frank and helped to bring out his own duplicitous nature. (Nathanson’s done a fine job here in making that the story’s subtext.) Frank’s parents aren’t even all that upset with him once they learn of the trouble he’s in. Frank doesn’t come across as particularly self-aware but he does seem to understand that he’s pursuing status and wealth in order to be a “somebody” rather than a “nobody”. In that way, he’s very much his parents’ son. What makes Frank so poignant – at least in this Hollywood portrait – is that he pursued wealth and status in order to regain what his family had lost: their money, their social status, their home, and their unity. It is for these reasons (and also because he’s a non-violent criminal) that Frank Abagnale, Jr. was a sympathetic “good bad guy”, an almost Robin Hood-like rogue for the “Me Generation”. Frank clearly enjoyed his escapades (as in “it seemed like a good idea at the time”); he learned long before there was MTV how to get money for nothing and his chicks for free.

As despicable as some of Frank’s crimes were (he impersonated a doctor, tried court cases, and flew planes!), this script always manages to humanize him and to find the black humor in his exploits. Frank is an astute observer, a fast study who does plenty of research and learns quickly. You’d be surprised at how simple it was for Frank to learn vital secrets from people who are either too trusting or just downright gullible. Also, the old “man in uniform” schtick made Frank a hit with the ladies, who often found themselves his unwitting accomplices. And whatever Frank can’t learn from watching actual pilots or from reading in a book, he gleans from TV. He could always fall back on dialogue from Perry Mason or Dr. Kildare when he got into a bind! Catch Me If You Can was striking because it illustrated just how easy it was for Frank Abagnale to perpetrate such massive frauds and get away with it for as long as he did.