Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a Russian stuck in an airport terminal when his country ceases to exist.

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2005)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci Imagine that you're flying to a foreign country where you really don't know the language all that well. While you're in the middle of your flight, there is a war in your home country and the government is overthrown. Essentially, your country ceases to exist. When you get to the foreign country, they won't let you in without a valid passport, which you can't get without a country. So they tell you that you can't leave the airport terminal. That you have to wait there until further notice.
That's the situation that Viktor Navorski (Hanks) from Krahkohzia (yes, it's a fictional country, and I don't have the first clue how it's spelled) finds himself in.
The Terminal is an absurdly amusing comedy/drama that's all the more entertaining because you have to wonder, what if something like this actually happened? Is it possible? I really don't know, but I'd hate to think that someday I'll be out touring the world and get stuck in some foreign terminal for nine months when Canada stops existing.
So since Viktor has nowhere to go, he makes a life for himself at JFK Airport in New York City, unable to go into the United States and unable to fly back to Krahkohzia. He makes a room for himself at Gate 67, an abandoned gate that is in dire need of construction. Without the ability to buy food (Krahkohzian dollars are not really worth anything in the States), Viktor has to find alternate means to feed himself. Soon he discovers that when you return baggage carts to their stalls, you get a quarter as a small reward. So he runs around the terminal collecting a whole bunch of them so that he can feed himself.
We don't really find out until very close to the end of the movie just why Viktor came to America. But he does finally accomplish his task, and his country is reestablished and he gets to return home.
We all knew the ending from the beginning of the movie. The real fun of it is how the movie answers the question of "What if.?" Bottom Line: 3.5 out of 4 (definitely worth watching)