Just how true are these based-on-a-true-story crime yarns?
Catch Me If You Can
In Steven Spielberg’s
Catch Me If You Can, Frank Abagnale Jr, played by
Leonardo DiCaprio, is a master scam artist who bluffs his way across the world with not much more than balls and a knack for forging cheques. He’s pursued by FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).
Real deal
The youngest con man in Seppo history, Frank cashed millions of dollars worth of cheques in 50 US states and 26 countries, before he could legally buy a beer. As shown in the film, he impersonated a Pan Am pilot, and – more worryingly – the chief resident paediatrician at a Georgia hospital. He only served five years in an America jail. He was released early, so he could work with the good guys.
Bulls—t
In the film, when Frank is extradited from France to America, he learns his father has died. Gutted, Frank escapes through the plane’s bathroom plumbing – impossible, unless you can crawl through a 10cm shit pipe. He goes and sees his mum, before handing himself in. Nice idea, but crap. After escaping from the plane (through the kitchenette, not the dunny) he scaled a nearby fence to leave JFK airport. After picking up keys to a Montreal bank safe deposit box containing $20,000, he caught a train to Montreal's Dorval airport to purchase a ticket to Brazil. He was caught by a constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while standing in line at the ticket counter.
Stuff they left out
Frank didn’t start his scamming by pretending to be a French teacher – it was credit card fraud. He asked his father for a credit card to buy petrol for his truck, then made deals with servo station employees to falsely charge items to the card, giving him a portion of the dosh. The employee then kept the item seilling it again. In two months, Frank “bought” 14 sets of tyres, 22 batteries and a heap of petrol. The bill totalled $3400, which his dad discovered when a debt collector contacted him.
Chopper
The 2000 Aussie film Chopper was based on the semi-autobiographical books by Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, and made Eric Bana’s serious acting career possible, for what it’s worth.
Real deal:
One unforgettable bit in the film is when
Chopper gets stabbed half a dozen times, by Jimmy Loughnan. In the book
Chopper: From the Inside, Read claims two blokes were involved in the incident, and Loughnan used an ice pick, but he says the reaction was pretty much spot on – that when you’ve been stabbed you don’t feel it right away. The scene where he has his ears sliced off is true (as our shot of the man on page 26 will testify). As Chopper explains of the real-life incident, in which he asked a fellow prisoner serving life for murder to remove his ears, “I remember the sound, it was like running your fingers down a blackboard at school, only it was going through my head, then I felt the warm blood bubbling in my ears.”
Bulls—t
Chopper has always said, “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story,” and his former underworld associates claim he is prone to stretch the truth to help his rep as a hard man (and boost book sales), but we aren’t going to hassle the bloke about where the bullshit starts and the truth finishes. Especially as he was brandishing a huge knife the last time we met him.
Stuff they left out
Chopper's injuries after the prison stabbing were heaps worse than suggested in the film. “I lost part of my spleen, most of my gall bladder, so many feet of stomach tubing, so many feet of bowel, part of my colon,” he has said. “I got the ice pick in the back of my neck, which nearly severed the spine.” What the film also fails to mention is that his ear-chopping effort started a rash of copycat cuttings, though Chopper resigned from the Van Gogh Club when one member cut off his own cock. As he explains, “Enduring a bit of pain is one thing, but that’s a bit much.”
Slideshows
Sexpo Girls
Spring Racing Babes
RALPH TV
Miranda Kerr
Bruno: American Football
The Max Club
Top 5 cricket sledges
Extreme Workout
