The Terminal Hits Home

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2004)

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have a good track record when they team up. Not that each does not have a good record of his own, but putting the two talents together has, twice in the past resulted in success. Their latest effort, The Terminal, although a strong production, lacks something the other two possessed. It is reminiscing of Catch Me If You Can. Both feature a main character that plays the mouse just a little smarter than the cat. In Catch Me If You Can, the cat and mouse comparison is more obvious whereas in The Terminal, the cat in not trying to catch the mouse, he's trying to get rid of him.
This time around Hanks is playing the mouse instead of the cat. He's a man who has become a citizen of no country during his time in the air and therefore, is forced to wait out his homeland's problems in JFK airport. Although the movie is based on true story, Spielberg and his crew have decided to leave all actual details out of their telling. The country Hanks' character, Victor Navorski, was from is fictional and whereas the man the story is based on resided in the airport for 15 years, we don't know whether or not Hanks waits out the problems for weeks, months or years.

Still, the story is not dependant on small details as is more a study of the survival of a man in a most unnatural habitat, waiting to go home. How long can you live on saltines and condiments (aka free food)? Where do you sleep? What do you do all day in an airport? The screenplay takes liberties in addressing these questions (there just happens to be a whole gate under construction for the entire duration of his stay), and if the screenplay had fallen into wrong hands, The Terminal would have been terminated. There are still moments when the film skids along the lines of disaster but usually the colorful cast brings it back to safe ground.
Actually, the characters are the most believable aspect of the film. Most likely it's because they are all well acted. Hanks plays the entirety of his character arc seamlessly combining elements of the lost boy form Big, the father from Sleepless in Seattle and the resourcefulness of Forrest in Forrest Gump. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the brunet version of a blond, but it's not her fault. The male screenwriters cast her as the damsel who's in distress about life. The cast is completed by Stanley Tucci, Diego Luna, Kumar Pallana and Zoe Salana, each taking on a unique part that round out the character study of that makes up Victor's friends.

The movie is neither a drama nor a comedy. It effectively mixes the two and creates a touching, unique film about what we do for love. ***/*****