The Terminal
The Terminal is an unlikely story of a traveller who is stranded in New York’s JFK airport because his country’s (a fictitious Eastern European nation) government has just been overthrown, and the immigration officials refuse to admit or deport him. He is stuck in the transit lounge, and must survive as best he can.
The story has a familiar ring to it: the protagonist is stranded by unfortunate circumstances, but by his ingenuity, he survives and even prospers in the face of opposition. What’s new is the setting - Spielberg turns the modern international transit lounge (a comfortable place nowadays - shops, restaurants, amenities) into a cold forbidding place populated with strangers. Add the security measures to keep unwanted visitors in (or out), and it becomes a virtual prison.
Tom Hanks plays the role of a foreign visitor who has to rely on his wits at first, but in the end he prospers because his honest nature has won the trust and friendship of the airport workers. He even catches the eye of an air stewardess (Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is simply luminous!) while struggling with the bureaucrats running the airport who conspire to deny him his chance to get out.
The film does require that the viewer suspends his sense of reality for a while - in one scene, Hank’s character gets a job as a building worker in the airport after a painting a wall in a single night with such skill that he impresses the foreman. And he learns a new language by comparing the foreign language version of Fodor’s travel guide to the English version. Just a little too neat.
Happily, I must say that these imperfections do not detract from the spirit of the movie, and can heartily commend it to those who are looking for a well-scripted story with an excellent cast.
Four stars.