CMIYC - Plot

The film begins in 1969, with an FBI agent, Carl Hanratty Jr. (Tom Hanks), arriving at a French prison to meet a sick Frank Abagnale Jr., who attempts to escape. The scene flashes back six years earlier. Frank's father, Frank Sr. cons a woman into lending him a suit for Frank Jr., who later acts as a driver for Frank Sr. in a ruse to get a loan from Chase Manhattan Bank. When the loan is denied (due to a series of IRS tax frauds by Frank Sr.), the family is forced to move from their grand home to a small apartment, with tension building between the family.
Frank soon realizes that his mother is having an adulterous affair with the bank agent as well. Frank Jr., feeling he will not fit in at his new school, poses as a substitute teacher in a French class for a short time. Eventually, tension builds between Frank’s mother and father, who file for divorce and ask Frank to choose who he will live with. Horrified, he runs away from home, using checks that his father had given him. When Frank runs out of money, he begins to use confidence scams. Eventually, Frank’s cons grow bolder and he impersonates an airline pilot. He forges Pan Am payroll checks and succeeds in stealing over 2.8 million dollars.

"Airline pilot" Frank Abagnale
Meanwhile Carl Hanratty, a humorless FBI agent, begins to track down Frank in spite of his superiors not putting much importance on the case, as most of them do not look at bank fraud seriously. Tracking Frank to a hotel, Carl discovers to his surprise that he is still in the hotel and runs into his room to arrest him. Not knowing who Carl is, Frank says his name is Agent Barry Allen of the United States Secret Service, saying that he has just caught the perpetrator. It is not until after Frank has escaped that Carl realizes he has been fooled.
Later, on Christmas Day, Carl is still working, alone late at night, when Frank calls him, apologizing for fooling him earlier. Carl announces that it doesn't work that way and, to Frank's horror, Carl realizes the reason for the call. Frank has no one else to talk to. Frank hangs up, and Carl continues to investigate, discovering that the name “Barry Allen” is from The Flash comic books and that Frank is actually a teenaged minor.
Frank, meanwhile, has not only changed to impersonating a doctor in Georgia, but is romancing a nurse, Brenda Strong (Amy Adams), a Southern Belle who works as a hospital nurse. He proposes marriage to her (at least partly to try to fix her relationship with her parents) and they travel to meet her parents in Louisiana. Announcing to them that he also has a law degree, Frank joins her father (Martin Sheen) as a prosecutor after passing (perhaps by cheating) the Bar exam.

When Hanratty tracks him down and arrives at their engagement party to arrest him, Frank admits the truth to Brenda and asks her to run away with him. Although shocked, she accepts his offer and plans to meet him at an airport. However, when she arrives, he sees a devastated Brenda being coached by FBI agents, who have surrounded the area. Realizing that she has been turned by Carl, Frank escapes on a flight to Europe.

Six months later, Carl angrily tells his boss that Frank has been forging checks all over the Eastern Hemisphere. Saying that Frank is out of control, he requests permission to follow him to Europe. When his boss denies him permission, Carl brings Frank’s checks to professionals who deem that the check was printed in France. Remembering from an interview with Paula, Frank’s mother, that she was born in France, Carl travels to her birthplace of Montrichard. He finds Frank inside a massive check-forging factory, and tells him that the French police will shoot him if he doesn’t surrender quietly. Frank assumes he is joking at first, but Carl vows that he would never lie to him. Frank handcuffs himself and Carl takes him outside, where, seeing that there are no cops outside, he compliments Carl's ability to fool him. Then, however, the French police arrive and escort him to prison.

Later on the plane extraditing Frank to the United States, Carl informs him that his father has died. Devastated, Frank escapes and returns to his old home, where he finds his mother with her second husband, as well as a young girl who Frank realizes is his half-sister. Frank gives up and is sentenced to prison, receiving visits from time to time from Carl. During one such visit, Frank easily deduces the identity of a forger by glancing at some checks Carl is carrying as evidence. Impressed, Carl then arranges for Frank to be allowed to serve out the remainder of his sentence working for the check fraud department of the FBI under Carl's custody, which Frank accepts. Although he is out of prison, he is chained to a desk job; Frank misses the thrill of his old life and even attempts to pose as an airline pilot again. He is cornered by Carl, who insists that Frank will return at the end of the weekend, since there is no one chasing him.

On Monday, Carl is nervous that Frank has not appeared to work yet and is afraid that Frank has run away and ruined both their lives. However, Frank soon shows up and asks Carl about their next case. Bristling, Carl demands to know how Frank cheated on the Bar Exam in Louisiana, to which Frank replies that he didn’t – he had studied for only two weeks and actually passed the exam. Astounded, Carl asks him "Is that the truth, Frank?" to which Frank merely smiles. Carl smiles back and the two continue to investigate their next case.