The Terminal

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

If there's anyone who can sucker us into an unnecessary trip to the airport, it's the Hollywood tag team of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Their latest collaboration, The Terminal, is based very loosely on a true story about a man who lost his country in a military coup and his visa's validity in a storm of paperwork, leaving JFK airport as his lone legal choice of residence. Viktor Navorski (Hanks) is the stranded protagonist who has to learn how to survive amongst the bustling travelers while winning the heart of a ditzy flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and fending off the threats of an overzealous immigration agent (Stanley Tucci). Spielberg gets behind the foreign underdog, but he's so carried away with making the impossible happen that the story's absurdities relegate the second half of the flick to one long, forced happy ending. All-American actor Hanks will have you believing he's Slavic before you settle into your seat, and a couple of bit parts (Chi McBride and Diego Luna) deliver engaging side stories, but overall, it's a lot like spending two hours in any airport: lots of down time and, in this case, no booze.