A Touching Comedy

Rating: 8/10 (4 August 2019)

On his way to New York City to resolve a personal matter, "Viktor Navorski" (Tom Hanks) becomes victimized by a civil war in his home country which leaves him in a curious situation. In essence, since his government no longer exists his passport and visa are no longer valid. That means that he cannot go back and he cannot enter the United States. So with no other options the temporary head of Homeland Security at JFK Airport "Frank Dixon" (Stanley Tucci) decides to detain him for the time-being in the international terminal there. Unfortunately, as the civil war drags on with no clear resolution, Viktor is left homeless for weeks on end with only a couple of employees there as friends. Yet despite all of this he remains resolute in his determination to finish what he set out to initially accomplish. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an especially cute and endearing film which captured my attention from start-to-finish. Admittedly, there were a few slow parts here and there but they were definitely made up for by the frequent comedy, romance and drama scenes which flowed all around. On that note, while Tom Hanks was quite impressive, I also liked the performance of Kumar Pallana (as "Gupta Rajan") who I thought was absolutely hilarious. Likewise, having two attractive actresses like Catherine Zeta-Jones ("Amilia Warren") and Zoe Saldana ("Dolores Torres") certainly didn't hurt in any way either. Be that as it may, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and have rated it accordingly. Definitely above average.