America, America

Rating: 5/10 (25 February 2007)

"The Terminal" is the kind of film a director can make only when he owns the studio. A small-scale single-person story about waiting in an airport featuring big stars on a giant set, it is neither the best nor worst film Steven Spielberg ever made, but interesting despite its flaws.
Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a citizen of the fictional central European republic of Krakhosia who finds himself stuck at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City when a civil war breaks out back home, effectively stranding him at the airport itself. There he makes do as best he can.
"You have no legal right to enter the United States, and I have no legal right to detain you," explains the head of JFK's security force (Stanley Tucci). "It seems you have fallen through a small crack in the system."
Tucci plays the film's heavy, one of several key elements of the film that doesn't really work. Yet this is not a bad Spielberg film like "1941" or "The Lost World." "The Terminal" at its best showcases Hanks' engagingly odd Latka-esquire character and Spielberg's bold attempt at melding French New Wave to Bill Forsyth at his early-80s whimsical peak. Even when the film veers into a logic-defying romance subplot between Hanks and an adulterous flight attendant played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, it never entirely loses you, and there are nice moments throughout that show why, even when operating at less than full steam, Spielberg is the greatest filmmaker of his kind since Frank Capra. He excels at pushing buttons his audience doesn't even know are there.
I first saw this movie in a theater with a woman from Russia, who found the film much funnier than I did. An immigrant herself, I think she responded to Navorski as a doughty representative of the immigrant spirit of American culture though no immigrant himself (he plans to return to Krakhosia eventually.) As Navorski sets to work carving a life in the airport terminal, he wins support from a veritable melting pot of ethnic and racial types who find common cause in his welfare.
There are some virtuoso moments from Spielberg, like a long crane shot that pulls to reveal Navorski as the small cog he is at JFK, but for the most part he keeps things simple. The script overplays its hand throughout, however. Navorski isn't just well-regarded by the airport workers; they stick photocopies of his handprint at their work stations and follow him like the Pied Piper as he walks to the front gate. Tucci's Frank Dixon comes unglued as he is lectured by a superior about learning from Navorski. The romance with the flight attendant drowns under a sea of artificial dialogue.
The ending is rather weak, too. Though it references a cool bit of real cultural history, discovering the reason behind Navorski's visit doesn't really pay off for the story.
Yet I'm a sucker for any film set in New York that references Tony Randall, Yeoman Rand, and "Strangers In The Night," and finds the value and comedy of life even when stuck in an airport. "The Terminal" doesn't hold your attention like classic Spielberg, but it does reward it now and then.