Movie Of The Week - Catch Me If You Can

Title; Catch Me If You Can (based on a true story)

Movie Year; 2002

Star Actors; Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken

If you're a lover of Hollywood movies, you should know Leonardo DiCaprio. He was the star actor in Oblivion and Wolf of Wall Street alongside other great movies. His name was Frank Abagnale, Jr. In this movie, he was a sixteen year old who had committed a lot of fraud before the age of eighteen. His parents were so much in love and rich too. They gradually lost all they had and could no longer afford the luxurious life they lived. He never expected it to end but he had to watch them split and when given the option of choosing which parent he'd love to live with after the divorce, he was at a crossroad. Instead of choosing, he ran away which marked the beginning of many fraudulent acts he engaged in. His plan was to bring back their comfort, by hook or crook.

He worked as a doctor, a lawyer and as a co-pilot for a major airline all before his eighteenth birthday. A master of deception, he was also a brilliant forger, whose skill gave him the first real claim to fame: at the age of seventeen, Frank Abagnale, Jr. became the most successful bank robber in the history of the U.S. FBI Agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) makes it his prime mission to capture Frank and bring him to justice but Frank is always one step ahead of him. Oh, I forgot to mention that he even went as far as changing his name as he moved from state to state on the run.

One of my favourite part of the movie was when he was taken to a new school and he was all “suited” up unlike other students who dressed casually. He was already being laughed at when he shouted at the class to be quiet and disguised as their French teacher. He taught them for a week and even went as far as holding a parents and teachers meeting and was even planning a field trip for the school before he got caught. He found love too, he got married to one of the females he had ‘it’ with who through her father he later became a lawyer. All this happened before he was eighteen.

One of my heart-breaking moments was when he told Carl he would like to call his dad while they were in the plane and Carl broke the news to him – his dad was dead while trying to catch a train. He got his dad a Cadillac before he died but he rejected it maybe because he knew the money wasn’t ‘clean’ though he supported his son not to give up. He was eventually caught and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. He worked with the FBI while in prison, he assisted them to identify fake cheques and even continued with that after his sentence elapsed. He was paid heavily for that of course.

Lessons I learned from this movie are;

• Age never stops you from achieving anything great.
• Be ready for the unexpected, that thing that gives you joy can become a source of sadness tomorrow so always be ready and have a back-up plan just incase.
• Love is a beautiful thing if you find the right person.
• If you have a skill or talent coupled with intelligence and the willingness to apply them in your life, you will survive better than the average man.
• A family that is intact will most likely survive the storm compared to a broken family.
• With determination and hardwork, you can be what you want to be.

Well well, that’s all I have for us today, are you a movie freak? You should see this movie. I hope I tried in narrating the story and convincing us to find and watch the movie. Watch out for our next movie for the week next week. Ciao.



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