Overall Rating
  Awesome: 22.93%
Worth A Look: 38.22%
Average: 23.57%
Pretty Bad: 10.83%
Total Crap: 4.46%
11 reviews, 91 user ratings
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| Terminal, The |
by Collin Souter
"The best airline or airport comedy since 'Airplane'"
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I consider myself to be pretty tolerant when it comes to immigrants arriving in our country without being able to fully comprehend the language. Okay, I know it can get pretty frustrating when a person with limited English skills works in a movie theater and I have to explain to them that the screen is off balance, but I try not to immediately get all fired up about it and say things like, ‘Learn the language!’ Instead, I remind myself the English language may be the hardest language of all to learn. Even we have trouble learning it. What does it mean when someone says ‘I could care less’? In Perfect English, it means that the person DOES care, but they could care less. Rarely do I hear someone actually say, ‘I COULDN’T care less.’ Some people really do need to learn the language.The writers of the new Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks movie “The Terminal” understand this pretty well, yet they never directly address it. The movie tells the story of a contractor named Viktor Navorski (Hanks) from East European Krakozhia, who, because of political upheaval in his country, is left trapped in an airport unable to get back home and legally unable to set foot on American soil. He knows very little English and has arrived in America for “pleasure” (as opposed to “business,” but I’d rather not give away the real reason for his being there). Nobody knows him here. Nobody wants to deal with him, but the airport officials and Viktor are, alas, stuck with each other.
Or, I should say we’re stuck with him. “The Terminal” really tells the story of immigrants who come to our country and have trouble assimilating to our customs, especially if they’re not here legally. What happens to Viktor probably happens to many people who visit here. The official in charge of keeping Viktor in the airport, a frustrated bureaucrat named Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) tries to get rid of Viktor by setting traps for him to leave the airport, thereby forcing the authorities to arrest and detain him so he can be “someone else’s problem.” He also tries many bureaucratic methods, but to no avail. Soon, Victor becomes a permanent staple in the airport, both to Frank and to the many supporting characters who work there.
Yet “The Terminal” is not a fish-out-of-water story. Viktor can figure his way through many situations just by watching other people go about their day-to-day routine and he does his best to learn the English language. Of course, nobody wants to sit through a movie that only takes place in an airport where nothing romantic happens, so of course, Viktor meets Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an emotionally confused stewardess who takes great pleasure in reading up on world history, particularly the works of Napoleon. World history soon becomes the common language between Viktor and Amelia and soon more languages come into play as their relationship deepens.
The movie’s storyline deepens as well when many of the supporting characters make their way into Viktor’s life. Within these people’s eyes, Viktor becomes a folk hero, a coward, a means to an end, a messenger and a pawn. To us in the audience, Victor does not differ that much from Hanks’ Forrest Gump or Jim Carrey’s Truman (incidentally, the creator of “The Truman Show,” Andrew Niccol, carries story credit with this film). Every character Viktor comes in contact with has their own little story and soon Viktor becomes a chapter in it.
“The Terminal” contains many moments of high comedy and earned sentiment. Spielberg has never been much of a satirist and much of the storyline lends itself to scathing satire on immigration and homeland security. Instead, “The Terminal” is a sweet film, a crowd-pleaser that does not aim to preach, just to please. It tries a little too hard towards the end in a crowd scene where the sentiment goes a little over-the-top, but for the most part we’re right there with Viktor and we can plainly see the absurdity of his situation through his eyes. Credit, of course, goes to Hanks’ performance as yet another cast away (and just what is it about Hanks’ palm that so fascinates these filmmakers?).
Credit also goes to a smart screenplay written by Sacha Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson for carefully sidestepping the pitfalls of many fish-out-of-water type movies. “The Terminal” will likely stand the test of time simply by not having it of a particular time. Viktor does not learn any contemporary slang or catch phrases that would make him sound like an idiot. For a movie that takes place entirely in an airport where pop culture looms everywhere, that’s quite an accomplishment. The writers also skillfully take their time in revealing the nature of Viktor’s primary mission in America. The only screenplay gap I noticed occurs in a sub-plot involving a janitor’s love for one of the clerks, where the outcome of their story does not have enough set-up to be believable (something must have been cut in the editing room).
As for Spielberg’s resume, this marks the second part of a new chapter in his career, following “Catch Me If You Can.” He seems to really want to put the special effects toys and grandeur epics out of the way and concentrate on character films, comedies with pathos and engaging people we’d all like to meet at the story’s center. Still, as always, these movies remind me that almost 30 years after “Jaws,” and the guy can still please a crowd. He has not lost a single ounce of showmanship and yet he continues to grow, take chances and, yes, even at his age, mature.Though, as I said before, “The Terminal” does not aim for satire, its great accomplishment is that it gets us thinking about the issues anyway. We try to be welcome to foreigners, but sometimes we grow intolerant of the language barrier. Authorities try to keep people from illegally immigrating, yet many of them are doing a job that needs to get done and one the rest of us in America wouldn’t be caught dead doing. Of course, it goes without saying that if they come to our country with good intentions and spend money here, they’re okay by us. Learning the language helps, but as this movie illustrates, the world consists of many languages through which we can all communicate.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10087&reviewer=233
originally posted: 06/18/04 14:30:37
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USA
18-Jun-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 23-Nov-2004
UK
03-Sep-2004 (12)
Australia
09-Sep-2004
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