WHEN it comes to feel good movies, there aren't many combinations that hit the spot quite like Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

And, like it or not, The Terminal is right on the money...

Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, an Eastern European traveller who finds himself stuck in JFK airport for nine months when he falls down a crack in the system.

Visiting New York for the first time, he arrives at JFK at the very moment his home country erupts in civil war. Its borders are closed, its visas cancelled and the international community refuses to recognise existing agreements until the situation cools. Effectively, Viktor is a citizen of nowhere.

He can't be admitted to the USA, but neither can the American authorities deport him. Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), the airport chief, decides the only thing to do is allow Viktor to remain on international soil surrounded by duty free stores, departure gates and people in limbo like himself.

Panic-stricken, unable to make himself understood and deeply frustrated, Viktor sets about making a home for himself at the unused Gate 67. And there he stays for nine months, teaching himself English, slowly making friends with maintenance staff and gradually earning the respect of the wider community of terminal workers. There's even the makings of a romance (of sorts) with glamorous flight attendant Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

Although there are moments of levity, The Terminal is not a comedy; and despite the obvious human story, it's not really a straight drama either. It isn't even particularly commercial... and yet the product placement is unforgivably heavy-handed in places.

That it succeeds is almost entirely down to Hanks' performance. Closer in spirit to his turn in Road To Perdition than Castaway, Hanks inhabits Viktor from the start to the extent you cease to see him as a big Hollywood star. It's a skill more commonly found in character actors than leading men and Hanks uses it extremely well, conjuring an army of affectations, ticks, speech patterns and movements. He engages our sympathies while giving us room to be glad Viktor is not our problem, but also neatly encapsulating the lack of humanity and compassion in a system designed simply to process people.

Only when Spielberg moves the mawk up a gear towards the end does the bubble burst. His revelation of Viktor's mission in America is enchantingly romantic, but the completion of it - and the final scene in the cab - is the cinematic equivalent of dewy puppy dog eyes and totally unnecessary. He had us hooked long before that.

But in spite of the saccharine finale, the journey to it is classy, understated and quietly affecting.

See it at UCI, Odeon