Fearless Writer ... Reviews

Stars: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride
Director: Steven Spielberg

Viktor Novorski (Hanks) is a man who has fallen through a loophole in international travel laws. While in transit, his home country of Krakozia (apparently situated somewhere around Hungary or Bulgaria) is subject to a coup – making his passport and visa redundant. He is, for all intents and purposes, a citizen of nowhere.

The Department of Homeland Security in New York – run by the anal-retentive Frank Dixon (Tucci) – restricts him to the international airport terminal until order is restored in his home country. Dixon expects Viktor to walk out the door and become someone else’s immigration problem, but the Krakozian is too smart for that. Over the course of nine months, he finds a way to earn American money, makes friends with the airport staff and even finds a love interest in stewardess Amelia Warren (Zeta-Jones). Why does he persist in playing it by the book? The answer lies in a can of peanuts.

The Terminal is a likeable film populated by amiable characters and buoyed by just enough intriguing subplots to avoid drowning in its own sentimentality. We can mostly buy Hanks as an Eastern European caught in a dumbfounding snarl of bureaucracy, however it’s far from his best performance in recent years and he occasionally bursts into moments of Hanksian excess that are too American.

Unlike Hanks, however, the plot has some major believability issues. The finale was clearly cooked up on a Hollywood scriptwriter’s Powerbook and cheapens a tale that was inspired by real events. Ironically, the Catherine Zeta-Jones subplot is true to life – but its realism ultimately makes it redundant to the greater story.

With its warmth, laughs and agreeable characters, The Terminal is a very pleasant way to lose two hours of your life – but it does have the aroma of a fascinating yarn homogenised for consumption by the masses. In other words, this is a Steven Spielberg film down to its government-issue bootlaces.
VERDICT: 3.5/5 stars

ON THE DVD
BOOKING THE FLIGHT Too short to be thorough, this featurette instead looks at some of the more unusual elements of the scripting process. The screenwriter actually spent a couple of days at an airport to get a feel for the people who inhabited it.

WAITING FOR THE FLIGHT How do you build an airport from scratch? This mini-documentary shows you. Step one is to find an empty hangar (no studio was big enough). To their set designers’ credit, the finished product is totally convincing.

BOARDING No doubt this is the pick of the featurette litter. It deconstructs several of the characters, looking at their motivations, their personalities and how each actor approached their role.

TAKE OFF A standard-issue but nevertheless enjoyable making-of documentary. There seems to have been a genuine élan on set, which the cast and crew attribute to the unusually airy, well-lit set. Other topics covered are the ridiculous logistics in extras and lighting, plus costume design and special effects.

IN FLIGHT SERVICE Composer John Williams (Jaws) talks about the subtleties required to score a movie that brings together different cultures and swings between light romance, drama and comedy.

LANDING Brief stories from the cast and crew about their real-life airport experiences. Catherine Zeta-Jones has a funny tale, Spielberg professes to have never had a problem. He should buy himself a lottery ticket.