Its always the films that you think you wont like that you love.

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2005)

The terminal sounded like a dead end film to me. It was the trailer that first put me off the film. However, I did promise myself that I would watch the film when it came on DVD because of hanks and Spielberg's contribution. I loved the "Terminal"; in fact it's probably the only film I've watched twice in the same evening. Based on the true story of the Iranian transient in 1988 "who's still there and was offered 1/4 million dollars by Spielberg- at Charles DE Gaulle airport" this film is set at JFK. What I like about the film was that it revolved around relationships with people working at airport rather than lots of small solo stories or stories with other transients like that in "Castaway". Hanks needs others to find that sweet innocence inside him that makes people love him although not necessarily want to make love too him."will explain later" Much of the narrative and directing is excellent / masterful but in places it borders on the ridiculous. It's as if two directors were making the same film. Egg the slapstick scene of hanks trying to sleep on the chairs did not work for me. Perhaps the most intriguing element was the casting of Catherine Zeta Jones. At first I thought that their was no sexual chemistry between the two but then I realised that she had been cast for that precise reason. The two connect on a spiritual level but not on a sexual level. And this is key to the ending of the film. So it was not hanks but CZJ grey haired lover who you envied.IE the man who gives her "great sex" and then leaves her. I feel it is the ending that spooled the film for me. I would have like to have seen some twist regardless of how unrealistic that would make the two transcend the spiritual relationship."the clinch and night they spend together doesn't count" An alternative ending could have been that Victor becomes a celebrity for staying at the airport has TV companies endorsements and is offered a vast amount of money from a movie company to make his biopic. I do want my happy endings when i pay to see mainstream - and love to watch my art /gangster films over the weekend when i expect death loneliness and espresso.Give me chips with my burgers and french beans with my salmon steak.