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 | Academy Award winning director Steven Spielberg teams up with two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks and Oscar winner Catherine Zeta-Jones for this touching and critically acclaimed comedy.
After arriving at New York’s JFK airport, Viktor Navorski (Hanks) gets unwittingly caught in bureaucratic glitches that make it impossible for him to return to his home country or enter the U.S.
Now, caught up in the richly complex and amusing world inside the airport, Viktor makes friends, gets a job, finds romance and ultimately discovers America itself.
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 |  | Life is waiting.
Better than half a bottle of wine and a bubble bath, The Terminal will sooth your cares away, gently charming you into a relaxed and happy state for at least a couple of hours. If you’re lucky, its rejuvenating effects might last the whole night. It’s what we call a feel good flick, which doesn’t mean it’s dumb or excessively sentimental, just that it’s sweet. Very, very sweet. We love the cast, and not just because it’s led by the nicest guy on Earth, Tom Hanks. We dig the pace, the visuals and the vibe of the film, basically everything that directing god Steven Spielberg gave to the movie. The screenplay, the music… even the set did it for us. Really, there’s nothing that we didn’t love about The Terminal.
For those of you who like a few details thrown in with your rave reviews, this movie tells the tale of one Viktor Navorski (Hanks), a kindly Eastern European traveller who, having flown into New York’s JFK airport, is promptly refused entry into the States. Turns out his country went to war while he was in the air and now no longer exists. His passport confiscated, he can neither leave the airport nor return to his country, which officially doesn’t exist. So he lives in the airport. Uncertain at first, hungry, uncomfortable and alone. But he’s a good bloke, and not about to go down without a fight, so he finds friends, earns a few dollars and makes a new life for himself within the confines of the terminal. He meets a girl too. A stewardess in a doomed relationship with a married man, Amelia (Catherine Zeta Jones) needs a shoulder to cry on. Something European, maybe. When Amelia’s not around, which is really most of the movie, Vik busies himself playing matchmaker, building walls and ornamental fountains, slipping over, playing poker and clashing, over and over, with the one man who desperately wants him out of there, airport boss Stanley Tucci.
Believe it or not, The Terminal is actually based on a true story. In 1988, Iranian refugee Merhan Nasseri landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris after being denied entry into England because his passport and United Nations refugee certificate had been stolen. French authorities would not let him leave the airport. He remained in Terminal One, a stateless person with nowhere else to go. He has since been granted permission to either enter France or return to his own country. But instead he chooses to remain in the terminal and tell his story to anyone who will listen...
On paper the story might sound a little thin. The setting a bit glum. But in Spielberg’s hands it comes alive, just like the airport itself seems to glow from Victor’s presence. Incidentally, though you could easily be forgiven for believing the airport in the movie to be genuine, it was in fact a massive set, exquisitely designed, painstakingly detailed and built in an old aircraft hanger.
Steven Spielberg knows what we want. He always has. He’s given us Jaws. He gave us Indy. We should trust him by now because he rarely, if ever, disappoints. The Terminal is a great movie. A warm, amusing human drama that presses all the right buttons and leaves you feeling better than you did at the start. Positively life affirming, if you ask us. Rent online now!
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