The Terminal (12a), dir. Steven Spielberg, 2004
Writer: Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson from a story by Gervasi and Andrew Niccol
Stars: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride

In 1988 Merhan Karimi Nasseri was exiled from Iran for protesting against the Shah, and flew to Paris to claim asylum. His request was rejected, and he found himself in a bizarre no man’s land: exiled from home, and barred from entering France. A man with no country, he has been living in Charles De Gaulle airport ever since.

Steven Spielberg’s latest film, The Terminal, is based on this premise, but not on Nasseri himself. Spielberg’s hero is Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), who arrives in the US to find his native Krakozhia has lost its international recognition while he was in the air.

The airport is run by Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), a tightly-wound bureaucrat who initially tries to help Viktor. He suggests to him that, although he is not strictly allowed into the US, leaving the airport discreetly would be an easy task. When Viktor fails to take the hint, Dixon even takes him to the door, but Viktor refuses to break the rules.

It’s at this point that audiences might lose patience with Viktor. Respecting the law is admirable to a point, but surely not when the law enforcers themselves are telling you to ignore the red tape? Dixon also loses patience, and becomes increasingly hostile to try to force Viktor out of his airport.

Nonetheless Viktor has a breezy, positive outlook that allows him to overcome any obstacle with good humour, and brings him to the attention of Amelia (Catherine Zeta Jones), a glamorous air hostess with a turbulent love life.

The Terminal is a sweet comedy which aims for Capra-esque humanism, but with a premise which never gets off the ground. Tom Hanks is always charming, but his Viktor has too many ‘funny foreigner’ tics and pratfalls, and seems to have been based on Borat.

The film is amusing throughout, but never funny or dramatic enough to match any of Spielberg’s recent output. The romantic subplots are unconvincing, and the endless product placement seems out of place in such a homespun fable.

The film suffers from a central paradox. For us to engage with Viktor, he needs to be reasonably smart and resourceful. However, for the plot to work, he needs to willingly imprison himself in an airport for nine months, which makes him sound a bit thick. Consequently, the story never grabs us, as Viktor is either too smart to really get stuck like this, or too dumb for us to care.

David Haviland 01.09.04

Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) arrives at a New York airport eager to see the Big Apple so he can fulfil the promise that's brought him there. Unfortunately for him while he was airborne his home country of Krakozia has suffered a coup. Arriving in America, the land of freedom, Navorski is a man without a country. He's also a man without a passport, when it's taken from him by Dixon (Stanley Tucci), the airport chief who tells the uncomprehending Navorski that he can't go into America and he can't go home. What he can do is wait in the terminal's passenger lounge until things sort themselves out. So he does, for nine months, making the airport his home and, with some ingenuity, his workplace.

Hanks soon has us in the palm of his hand with his engaging performance as the bumbling good guy, with fruity eastern European accent, slapstick pratfalls and comic timing. He gets laughter out of simple things such as trying to sleep on airport furniture and is adept at conveying Navorski's playful nature as he grows in his command of English (it's amazing what you can learn from airport bookstores when you're stuck there for months on end).

Navorski befriends other ethnic minority 'refugees' who work at the airport, helping one in his hesitant courtship. He also strikes up a friendship with an attractive flight attendant (Catherine Zeta Jones) who is looking for love in all the wrong men. Could she get it with Navorski? Her scenes with Hanks work well, Zeta Jones is too accomplished an actress to turn in a bad performance, so maybe it's the script that just doesn't flesh out her character enough. Stanley Tucci as the upwardly mobile airport chief is as watchable as ever - a serpent in a suit, foiled in his attempts to rid himself of the man who stands between him, a well-run airport and promotion.

The Terminal is a fable about America and the hopes, spirit and integrity of the ordinary man. In short, this is a Steven Spielberg film and Tom Hanks is his Ordinary Joe, as he was in Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg has always been a master of spinning a lot out of not much and, as usual, this is enjoyable if whimsical stuff. In another age it might have been a Frank Capra film with James Stewart in the Hanks' shoes.

The terminal - the building - is a star in its own right, a huge purpose-built set through which the camera glides like a passenger. And there are lots of cameos from other big names. Not actors but chain stores - Borders, Starbucks, Burger King and the rest. Some may find this an irritating, in-your-face, product placement. Yet the terminal is a microcosm of America. Living amidst the corporate brands and bureaucracy of the airport is Navorski, the hard-working, honest, man-with-a-dream who, tradition has it, made America in the first place. It's an interesting thought. But Spielberg knows that first and foremost movies are about entertainment and The Terminal is very good entertainment for all its flaws.