Cinema Experts

“The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were better off than you are off today but it took today for you to realize it. But today has arrived and it's too late. You see? People are never happy with what they have. They want what they had, or what others have. The grass is always greener on the other side.”
Two aging gangsters, once partners, have become rivals when Morgan Freeman's son is assassinated. It's thought that Ben Kingsley had it done so Freeman has who he thinks is a bookie named Nick Carter, Josh Hartnett, to murder his son in retaliation to cover an owed debt. Bruce Willis is Mr. Goodkat, a world class assassin who seems to be working for both Freeman and Kingsley..what his chief motivation could be is a mystery at the offset.
The key to the whole movie comes in a story Willis tells to an unfortunate who listens intently about a kid's father who borrowed from gangsters 22 grand for a horse bet he heard from his uncle(the specific horse, with an ironic name synonymous with the film, has been shot up with tranquilizers). That father and his wife are assassinated because of the bet, but we're not exactly sure about the boy child.
Stanley Tucci portrays a cop keeping a stake-out on both families, quite curious about why Hartnett seems to be in the hip pocket of both Freeman and Kingsley. How Hartnett is able to evade certain death is an unraveling of secrets that'll point out a lot of the mysteries concerning not only Willis' unusual behavior, but the reasoning behind his own.
Is Hartnett who he says he is or merely someone completely different than we could possibly perceive? Lucy Liu has an entertaining, but key role as a snooping coroner who falls in love with Hartnett as she tries to "help" him find out where his old buddy Nick Carter is.You see Hartnett tells Liu that Carter offered him a place to stay after some catastrophic happenings in his life prior to the invite. Liu takes it that Carter has set Hartnett up for disastrous occurrences stemming from unpaid debts.
Some might say this film tries too hard to be clever like a "Pulp Fiction" kind of way and that it succumbs to a convoluted plot. Others might think this movie works the way it tries to be and the way it turned out. I loved this film, by the way. I love how the film plays out and tries to keep you guessing until the end. This film will keep your attention from top to bottom. If you're one of those people trying to look for a thriller that tries to keep you guessing until the end, you will like this movie. 8/10

“Do you have an appointment?”
The Terminal is a film that seems to be written for an actor like Hanks. Like the films Castaway and Catch Me If You Can, it's very character-driven. At times, the story loses its direction, but it could be intentional on the part of Spielberg (and the screenwriters), because that's the way the main character (Victor Navorsky) feels.
The film follows Navorsky as he lands at the JFK airport in NYC and eventually learns that he is stuck in the international lounge of the airport due to the dissolution of his homeland and the fact that the US will not immediately recognize the new government. As Navorsky begins to learn of his new predicament and how to cope, he makes mistakes and must use his mind to come up with alternate methods to get food, shelter, money and work. Truly, in many ways, Navorsky's story embodies what the mythological American Dream is all about with him using resourcefulness to show a sort of rugged individualism that causes him to "pull himself up by his bootstraps." That is one of the great strengths of the films script.
The other great strength is the much welcomed femininity of Zeta Jones' character about halfway through the film. At some points, the viewer might wonder how this relationship is going to resolve itself before the end of the film with Zeta Jones as the promiscuous flight attendant and Hanks as the wandering, yet trapped foreigner. Well, I'm happy to say, the writers make the brave choice with her character that isn't Hollywood. At the same time, she still seems to redeem herself.
I have to say it is a great one that first shows the meaning and beauty in our life about waiting and promise. Amelia is waiting for her dream to come true for eighteen years, for herself; Navorski's dad was waiting for something he honored so much for his life; and here comes Navorski, who waits for making his father's left dream come true, for fulfilling his promise, for the woman he fell in love, in a "crack" between the US and his own country.
He has done everything for others around him. If there is a great example of "egoless", he is one. Letting go ego, is the greatness that even Amelia found out when she gives up and scarifies something most important in her life to help Navorski.
This simple story conveys some wonderful philosophy for people living in this country busy around everyday for business, families, and so on, to slow down and reflect on something. As the retired officer said to officer Dixon, there is something we can learn from Navorski. 9/10