'Con me if you can': Exploring crime in the American cinematic imagination

This article deals with current re-dramatizations of crime and popular criminologies. It analyses key elements of the popular criminological imaginaries underpinning a recent and highly successful film-Catch Me If You Can-in order to tease out the discursive, mythical and fabulist techniques by which it communicates particular imaginations of crime. Additionally, the article offers some conceptual and analytical anchors for interpreting filmwork so that other popular representations might be more easily situated within criminological analysis. We argue that popular media portrayals of crime are highly effective in sustaining particular conceptions of the interaction between crime and wider social conditions, and we explore four layers of discursive work through which this film communicates the causes and consequences of criminal behaviour.