Carl Hanratty

Welcome, welcome.

All right, so today we are diving into a forensic accounting classic, Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo, Leonardo, those Ninja Turtles are tough, DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale Jr., and Tom Hanks as FBI agent Carl Hanratty.

Spielberg flick is over 20 years old, but just in case you haven't seen it, stop right now and watch before you do a listen.

Obviously, there are spoilers for the entire movie here, but again, old movie.

Uh, from there, impersonation escalates.

He poses as a pediatric supervisor at a Georgia hospital, charms his way as a, uh, fiance and as a attorney in Louisiana.

Uh, and all at the same time, FBI agent Carl Hanratty, played by Tom Hanks, is assigned to a bank fraud unit that nobody really wants, but pieces together that this guy who is scamming everybody for a t- a ton of money is, he pieces together that he's just a kid.

Hanranny, Hanratty finally corners Frank, uh, in a motel, uh, but Frank talks his way out of it by pretending he's part of the Secret Service.

And I'm happy to report it did not disappoint.

The film opens in 1969 with FBI agent Carl Hanratty, played by Tom Hanks, arriving in Marseille, France, to collect a prisoner, Frank Abagnale Jr., played by DiCaprio, who has fallen seriously ill in the grim conditions of a French prison.

From there, we flash back to 1963, to Frank's comfortable life in New Rochelle, New York, with his father, Frank Sr. That's Christopher Walken, and his French mother, Paula, played by Nathalie Baye.

And this is where the movie quietly plants everything that follows.

Not anything that doesn't have to be what Leo did in this movie, but like convincingly.

You know what? There's a, there's a line that Leo has in this where he, when he's talking with, with Hanratty, with Tom Hanks' character, and he says, "People only know what you tell them." Uh, and that's all you gotta do.

Like, that's how I started my career as a writer.

I literally called the newspaper and was like, "Hey, I'm a new writer in town.

...

but I, I, I think Tom Hanks' character was essentially a composite.

There isn't, like, a real Carl Hanratty.

He was just, like, a composite of FBI agents that had, you know, one point or another, uh, gone after this guy.