The Terminal is based on the true story of Merhan Nassiri, who has been living in the transit lounge of Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for 16 years. Makes one wonder if a French director wouldn't have been better off making this film. The existential dilemma, the loss of home and address, the eternal wait, loneliness and anxiety and the eventual survival—these profound themes would have found a much more intuitive treatment in vintage European filmmaking hands (alas, there aren't many left now, particularly of the East European kind). Spielberg, representing the terrible might of brash Hollywood, makes a supreme mess of it. He turns the sublime into the banal, at times taking it to the verge of ridiculous.
Viktor Navorski (Hanks) arrives in New York from fictional Krakozhia only to realise that his country has gone to war, it has been derecognised by the US and so the doors to NY are "closed". There is no motherland to get deported to either. All he has to do is wait at the terminal for the return flight if and when his home gets back to political normalcy. The poignance of the incredible story is given a back seat for overt entertainment. Amusement is always welcome if there's any freshness, wit and irony to it. Here the characters, the non-Americans in particular, are stereotypical—highlighting the American condescension and their ignorance of the world outside. The jokes are downright silly and situations cliched. Why, even a romance, with all the conventions intact, is made to bloom in transit! And, of course, in the end America and its spirit is thumpingly great and all-encompassing.
Hanks as Viktor is Forrest Gump with a studied broken English and a fake accent. Instead of a star-actor, an actor without an image would have done a much better job of it (John Malkovich, anyone?). But then the whole idea here is to recreate a James Stewart type who'd help all and be loved by all. Zeta-Jones, well, is a great Welsh beauty even when she howls and cries. For us Indians the star of the show is Gupta from Chennai who is the airport janitor. It's the lengthiest role for an Indian actor in mainstream Hollywood in recent times, bigger than even Naseer's in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now who is our Guptaji? It's our query of the week for the readers. And it's quite a tongue-twister of a name for an actor, mind you.
Indian Top 5
1. Dhoom
2. Madhoshi
3. Tumsa Nahin Dekha
4. Ek Se Badh Kar Ek
5. Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa
US Top 5
1. The Forgotten
2. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
3. Mr 3000
4. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
5. First Daughter
Courtesy: Film Information
