A master class in 'product placement', also has a rather nice movie embedded.

Rating: Null/10 (24 February 2005)

Up front I want to state that I really like "The Terminal". Tom Hanks is very good as the Eastern European temporarily without a country, forced by 'the rules' to live for some time in the NY airport terminal while things got sorted out. Reminiscent of another movie where he played a stranded man, "Cast Away." But foremost, it became obvious that this was a Spielberg 'master class' in product placement.
I will not further the cause by mentioning any of the products and merchants featured, but it is clear from the framing of shots, the props within scenes not contributing to the story, and the camera trailing the character to linger on a business name or logo that "product placement" was a main consideration by Spielberg in making the movie. Film students would do well to study "The Terminal" from this point of view to see what can be done.
SPOILERS FOLLOW. While he was flying to NY, Viktor's (Tom Hanks) country became involved in a civil war which lasted over a year. Since this invalidated his passport, and he could not go home, the International Lounge was the only place he could go, he figured for one or two days at the most. When you piece together all the dates, it eventually becomes over a year, September 2003 to December 2004.
His nemesis was the security head Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) who at first tried to encourage Viktor to escape the terminal so that he could call the NY police, effectively giving the problem to someone else. When wily Viktor figured this out (security cameras tracking him) he decided he would just wait. He learned that he could make money for food by returning rented carts for the 25 cents 'reward', until mean Frank put a stop to that. However as luck would often favor Viktor, a food worker Enrique enlisted his help to woo a pretty young officer, and in return Viktor got all the airline food he wanted. Viktor also turned out to be an excellent craftsman and was hired for $19 an hour, cash under the table, helping to complete terminal remodeling.
Viktor falls in love with pretty flight attendant Amelia (Cathy Z-Jones), she likes him, thinks he is just a frequent traveler too, but in the end she is attracted to the wrong kind of guy. We find out near the end that Viktor's whole reason for going to NY was to get the autograph of one last Jazz musician, who played in the music lounge of a certain hotel. When his friend Gupta, the janitor, delays the flight back home using his mop, Viktor has just enough time to get the autograph, hear one song live, and return home with his peanut can now filled with autographs from all of his deceased dad's favorite Jazz musicians. Why did he do it? "Because I believe he would have done it for me."
I don't know if it was sloppy filming, or a fluke of final editing, but the dates on the immigration stamps did not always make sense in the time line. And, at one point when Viktor had been there for 13 months, Amelia mentions "you didn't tell me you have been here for 9 months." Surprising for a Spielberg film, still a very good story and a very enjoyable movie. I saw it twice on successive days.