Do you know what Napoleon gave to Josephine on her birthday?

Rating: Null/10 (29 November 2004)

I can tell you what he didn't give her. He didn't give her a copy of The Terminal. You can just imagine the writers being delayed at JFK and coming up with this latest cockery. Based on the true story of Iranian refugee Marhan Nasseri who lives at Charles de Gaulle Airport, this story is painfully rehashed for the American palate with a broken thermostat: "If it worked for Castaway, it will work again." Tom Hanks is stranded again this time in the world of bad cinema and becomes a "crack" in the system: he can neither go back to his Balkan home of "crack"ozhia or enter American soil (except for moonlight dinners by the landing strip of course).
Our hero becomes messenger for an employee who ends up marrying a customs agent who has never met him but will marry him for the ring (airport women are that shallow) and proceeds to make a fountain for his love interest from airport urinals. The painful moment came when Zeta Jones asks Viktor "you're living at gate 67, I just wanna know why?" you can almost see her read her cue cards. Ouch. Hank's physical performance is Gumpian and his Krackozhian accent gets a bit tedious but he is a remarkable physical actor. Stanley Tucci is perfect as the Airport field commissioner but cannot stop Zeta-Jones from pairing up with older men. For Hanks fans. 2/10.