Review of The Terminal (2004) by Aminul H — 01 Jan 2016

Tom Hanks plays a character from a fictional former Soviet state stuck between countries and thus has to spend his days in the airport. While a comedy-drama with elements of romance, the film displays a message of the dangers of finding oneself as a stateless person in our world.

The comedy in this from Tom Hanks is more physical and it just about passes the 'six-laugh test' for a successful comedy. However, I suspect Spielberg imagined the audience to smile wryly rather than out loud at his actions and predicament. It certainly attempts to tug at the heartstrings and Spielberg has done this well. However, at 128 minutes it is way too long; there is a brilliant 90 minute drama-comedy in there somewhere. The romantic element with Catherine Zeta-Jones' flight attendant character was also quite unbelievable.

The characters are inconsistent in their interests as the film progresses, particularly Stanley Tucci's character who appeared to change his mind as to what he actually wanted. There were also a number of endings to the film- I counted three- but the one which they settled on was probably also the weakest. However, you can rarely go wrong with Tom Hanks and this is a decent feel-good film either way.