Check your logic at the gate

Rating: 7/10 (23 June 2004)

(As always, a warning: Yon be spoilers.) This film is a witty and likable send-up of American life in general and air travel in particular. In fact, it's the best send-up of travel since "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," as well as a film Kafka would allow his kids to see.
Tom Hanks seems to do his best work when he plays someone we should like, and he delivers once again as a foreign traveler caught in some bureaucratic cross-fire and forced to spend nine months in a terminal at JFK. (One wonders how different the movie would be if he had landed at a less-cushy airport -- say, Miami.) Most of his scenes are winners, primarily because Hanks also brings the best out of his fellow actors, particularly Stanley Tucci, the airport official who, for reasons that are not entirely clear, decides that letting Hanks enter the U.S. would be a personal defeat.
Unfortunately, this film also has its flaws. First, Spielberg hasn't asked us to suspend this much disbelief since "A.I." (It takes less time for Hanks to gain a fluency in English than it does for Tucci to find an interpreter?) Second, even though Hanks and the equally talented Catherine Zeta-Jones sparkle in their scenes together, the resolution of their budding affair leaves you unfulfilled. (Would it kill ya to let someone other than Indiana Jones get the girl for once, Steve?) Third, when you learn the true nature of Hanks' mission, you're left shaking your head. (Trust me on this one.)
But again, Hanks' performance justifies these flaws, even if it doesn't overshadow them. If you can believe that a man can live for weeks at a time on crackers and Whopper Jr.s, go enjoy Hanks and the rest of the cast. Just don't buy the screenplay to read on your next flight.