Heartwarming Sentimentality Can Bite Me
By Fearless Young Orphan The Terminal (2004) Directed By Steven Spielberg
The definition of “awfulness” gets a little fuzzy when discussing The Terminal because, taken all together, The Terminal is not exactly an awful movie per se. It’s directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Tom Hanks, and with those two you know that it simply can’t be all bad; they’re too talented. Spielberg, who has directed three of my ten favorite films, can tell a story in his sleep, and Hanks can play lovable as easily as he breathes. The movie looks great and has some reasonably interesting subplots. They are going for “heartwarming.” But the whole movie is derailed by gaping mistakes in the plot’s overall premise.
Tom Hanks is Viktor Navorski, a middle aged everyman from the faraway Russo-sounding land of Krakozhia, who has flown all the way to New York City for a very important personal reason. While he was in the air, his country underwent a coup and by the time he lands, there is no such place as Krakozhia recognized by the United States. Suddenly without a country, Viktor is forced by bureaucratic red tape to remain inside the airport. He cannot set foot outside the airport or he’s a fugitive. The red tape keeps him tangled up in the airport for almost an entire year, during which time he befriends everybody there except the guy in charge Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci playing it slimy), who becomes Viktor’s nemesis. Viktor manages to camp out, find work, make a home for himself and even hook up with way-out-of-his-league beauty Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a stewardess who is in the airport nearly as much as Viktor.
The plot itself is not complicated: fish-out-of-water can’t leave an airport but through determination and charm finds a way to get along. The mechanics required to keep the plot in motion seem beyond complicated: the movie has to strain violently to convince anybody that Viktor really has to stay in that airport, throwing around a lot of talk about Federal regulations, laws, loopholes and cracks. That works only briefly, and it completely falls apart when Viktor finally reveals why the hell he came to New York in the first place. So really, when I say that the mechanics of keeping the plot in motion seem beyond complicated, what I mean is that the mechanics of keeping this plot in motion are idiocy and boil down to two things:
1. Frank Dixon is an asshole; 2. Viktor Navorski is too stupid to tell anybody what he needs.
You get a very good feeling for how things are going to be in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, which strain the limits of human tolerance. Viktor, who obviously does not speak English, is stopped at the terminal by airline officials, who take him to the airport’s U.S. Customs Department. Here it is explained to him twice, in English, why he cannot leave the airport. These high-level customs officials work for a New York airport, in an area where they have perhaps dealt with at least a couple people who do not speak English and in fact tell Viktor, in English, that they are trying to “find a translator for him” but then proceed to conduct business in English to a man who obviously does not speak English and they seem to presume that because Viktor is nodding his head agreeably that he somehow has learned to speak English by osmosis in the last ten minutes because the translator is not mentioned again and Viktor is tossed out into the terminal in a complete fog of confusion.
These scenes, which are setting up the entire premise of the movie for us, are infuriating. They are not played as comedy. Frank Dixon is carrying around the title of “Customs Official” and is in line to be in charge of the entire airport, and I believe he is there under false pretenses. At some point in Customs Official School, I am almost sure that somebody mentioned that a good number of people in the world do not speak English and no matter how emphatically you say something to them in English they still do not speak English and therefore do not know what you are saying.
Viktor Navorski is a visitor to the United States, and is unaware that his homeland has undergone a drastic, violent upheaval, and Dixon treats him as if Viktor has done something purposely to irritate him and cause problems for the good old U.S.A. Viktor is thrown into the terminal with food vouchers and English instructions and nobody in authority makes any attempt to help this man. For this to be a farce, or even social commentary, Frank Dixon would have to be unaware that Viktor doesn’t understand him. But Dixon knows this is the case, and simply doesn’t seem to care. So it’s not funny. It’s almost physically upsetting, if you think about it.
Perhaps Spielberg was hoping we wouldn’t think about it, instead being distracted by Viktor’s zany misadventures in the terminal and the outrageously obvious Burger King product placement. Viktor doesn’t learn to speak English by osmosis in ten minutes, but he does seem to learn it in a month or so by reading guidebooks. Viktor gets a lot of lucky breaks, not the least of which is grabbing the attention of Amelia Warren because he’s maybe the only “decent guy” she’s ever met who isn’t married. This part of the movie is somewhat entertaining, if you can dodge the mallet that is trying to hit you over the head with heartwarming sentimentality.
Let’s discuss Viktor’s purpose in the Look there! That’s Zoe Saldana as a customs agent. United States. He has this stupid Planters Her subplot is not too bad. Nuts can that he carries around like it’s a sacred totem. It is to him. Everybody is curious about it. Once he is asked what’s inside the can, and Viktor says there is a “promise” in there. But there’s no follow- up. I have some ideas for follow-up questions. “Oh? What do you mean, there is a ‘promise’ in there? Are you speaking metaphorically? Do tell me all about it. We are all quite curious about your peanut can.” But no, not these airport people. They just let it go.
Late, late in the movie Amelia finally just asks Viktor what the damn thing is and he shows her: it’s full of autographs. Long ago Viktor’s father started collecting the autographs of jazz musicians, and the poor old Krakozhian died before he got the last autograph he needed to complete the collection. Viktor promised his father that he would travel to New York and get the autograph of the last musician, who plays nights at the Ramada Inn. And this is why Viktor must go to New York: he promised his father.
Now, hold on a minute, before you follow suit with Amelia and get all misty-eyed over Viktor’s devotion to his dad. Please recall that Viktor has just spent almost an entire YEAR in an airport, waiting for the opportunity to go to the Ramada Inn for an autograph. This is the ever-loving Ramada Inn, people, not Jupiter. Viktor’s mission was not a secret: he would have told anybody who had bothered to ask him directly. But it’s not just the fault of his less-than-curious friends. Viktor has been able to speak English for at least half of the months he’s been there. Did it really never occur to him to just tell somebody what he needed and ask for help? Because here’s the thing: as soon as Amelia knows what Viktor needs to do, she is able to get her “married friend” to get Viktor a day-pass into the United States. So, such an instrument exists, if only one is bright enough to ask for it.
And what about our customs official Dixon? Now, we already know that he wasn’t paying attention in Customs Official School, but I would think he would also be aware that there is such a thing as a “day pass” or any number of methods one could use to allow this poor slob the opportunity to go to the Ramada Inn. A police escort, maybe? Dixon has been trying unsuccessfully to rid himself of Viktor for months, yet never once has he made any attempt to find out what in New York is so important to this man.
Dixon is really hung up on having the correct “form” for every event and if that were all there were to his character, it would be comical. It’s funny, to deal with characters who are powerless to act unless the proper paperwork is signed. But Dixon is purposely cruel and asinine to Viktor, and bears a most unreasonable, inexplicable grudge against this man. Almost the first thing Dixon does is take Viktor’s passport and return ticket away from the man, thus eliminating the best possible solution to the problem: that Viktor simply return home until circumstances improve.
No, The Terminal makes Viktor’s long slog in the airport a battle of wills between the two men, where none need exist. At one point Dixon physically assaults Viktor in front of important witnesses, and nothing is done. The too-good-to-be-true Viktor becomes an airport hero for the assistance he gives to another traveler. (What assistance did he provide? He was a translator. Because the traveler did not speak English. Oh, and just incidentally, what Viktor does to help he man is, in fact, against the law, but you’re not supposed to notice that. You’re supposed to be angry at Dixon, who is really just doing his job, only he’s being a dick about it.) Making this a story about good versus evil, without giving Tucci a little Snidely Whiplash mustache to twirl, actually undermines anything the movie tries to accomplish plot-wise by drawing attention to the fact that the plot has no foundation.
You see, all of these problems of Viktor’s are made up; they are almost superhuman excuses to keep this man in an airport terminal, when there really is no logical reason for him to be there, all things being equal. A translator and a little truth-telling by Viktor would have solved this problem within the first week. Or better yet, how about these options:
a. One of Viktor’s thousand airport friends goes to the Ramada Inn for him, and gets the autograph, so Viktor can just go home.
b. Or if Viktor insists on meeting the musician in question, one of Viktor’s thousand airport friends goes to the jazz musician and tells him this poignant story. The friend asks earnestly if the jazz musician wouldn’t mind making a trip across town to the airport, to meet this determined Krakozhian fan!
c. Perhaps the jazz musician is on house arrest at the Ramada (there’s a zany sequel for you!). Viktor says to himself, “Well, maybe I’ll explain this situation to Mr. Dixon, get my return ticket back, and come back again some other time, when there’s less of a coup going on.” I have seen the movie twice now, and never heard anyone say that Viktor couldn’t simply return to Krakozhia whenever he wanted to, save for the fact that Dixon confiscated his return ticket.
And I have thought about this—if Viktor country is no longer recognized, his passport is no good for entering the United States. But since Viktor never enters the U.S., then what difference does his passport make? Put his Krakozhian butt back on the plane, and he becomes someone else’s problem, which is exactly what Dixon wants.
d. But, if Viktor cannot possibly afford another trip to the United States, ever, how about a human interest story. “Krakozhian Man Trapped at Airport While Trying to Fulfill Father’s Dying Wish.” And then, let me tell you, Viktor is going to be inundated with autographs, airplane tickets, and friendly handshakes from all the local politicians who want to look magnanimous.
There are so many ways to solve Viktor’s problem that you could make another movie about it. And this is why I can’t bear the movie. My hero Roger Ebert’s Movie Glossary calls this “an idiot plot,” which is defined as “a plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie would be over.” Oh, and I guess my hero Roger Ebert liked this movie much more than I did, if his blurb on the poster is any indication. That’s okay, he’s still my hero.
The final, infuriating straw is this: the movie could have been made without all the stupidity. Viktor could be an airport stowaway, slipping in under the radar, simply because he has nowhere else to go and the airport seems to have everything he needs. He could have almost exactly the same set of adventures without any of the idiot plot coming into play. Perhaps he has a layover in New York on his way home to Krakozhia, sees the coup on the news, and knows that if he goes home again, he’ll be taken prisoner. So he stays put until the war is over. And then the movie wouldn’t have me, shaking my head at everyone involved.
In fact, the plot of The Terminal really only makes sense if you look at it like this: Viktor likes being in the airport, once he figures out how to work the system, and he’s doing everything in his power to stay there. He’s got a choice between staying in a ritzy airport terminal where everybody loves him and he’s got a pretty good shot at nailing Amelia, or going back to an impoverished war-torn country where people are standing in bread lines. He may pretend that he’s on a mission, but come on. Amelia isn’t in Krakozhia, is she? And they probably don’t have Burger King, either.
He’s thinking, “This is nicer than a war. I think I’ll try to blend in.”