While I suspect that this movie is a bit of a fabrication because it says it was “inspired by a true story”, which has to be a step below “based on a true story”, there was some truth in there somewhere. We do know that Frank William Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a con man who, before his 19th birthday, wrote millions of dollars of fraudulent checks and passed himself off as a pilot, doctor and lawyer.

FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), meanwhile, is his foil, who tracks him across the country and finally around the world to bring him down. Time after time they cross paths as Abagnale goes through identities and his checks get better and better. We’re watching a movie, but it’s probably somewhat accurate in that the first batch of checks he passes are little more than paper with some decals on them.

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The acting in this drama was superb, especially from Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn. I find that as I watch more and more of Tim Robbins, I find that he has his characters nailed (he won an Oscar for his performance here) but they just don’t vary a whole lot. They always have the same off-kilter look, and they each make you wonder what is going on underneath the surface, but there just isn’t a lot of real depth. While I’m not the world’s largest fan of Sean Penn, I was impressed by his role here (he won too, deservedly so).

The thug-like character played by Penn is matched by Bacon’s police persona, and wouldn’t you know it? They knew each other as kids. As it turns out, Tim Robbins rounds at the trio as one of the friends who was abducted and abused one fine day while they were in the middle of some mischief making.

Penn’s character, Jimmy Markum, finds that his daughter is missing, and then that she is dead. Meanwhile, Bacon’s detective, Sean Devine claims the job of trying to figure out who did it – or at least find a reasonable suspect – before Markum uses his contacts to bring someone to justice.

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