Coffee and Cigarettes/The Terminal

Nicotine fit: Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes is mostly style over stimulation

By Mike Prevatt

With a title like Coffee and Cigarettes, writer-director Jim Jarmusch seems to be aiming for stimulation. However, over the course of 11 varyingly existential and loosely connected black-and-white film shorts--featuring two or three "characters" chatting, sipping java and puffing cancer sticks--the 17-year project doesn't consistently rouse its players or viewers. There's a lot of potential in the matching of actors, musicians and other notable (and obscure) figures catching up at various locales, but only some of the duos transcend what is largely casting and aesthetic novelty.

Perhaps the film's most disappointing aspect is that its premise trumps the actual results. For instance, the idea of teaming Tom Waits with Iggy Pop and letting them rattle on like two curmudgeonly elder-statesmen rockers reads great on paper. But Jarmusch writes their episode as a failure of rapport that isn't much more than awkwardness. Granted, their seat-shifting exchange creates an unmistakable and often amusing tension, the sort that also strengthens most of the other filmed conversations. But as it turns out, most of Waits and Pop's passive-aggressive friction is too banal and self-conscious for its own good. Interestingly, they realize, regardless of their similarities, exactly why they don't meet up more often. It implies that the union is forced, and it certainly feels that way.

A more rewarding exercise in verbal tension is the film's de facto centerpiece, a meeting between British actors Alfred Molina (Frida) and Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People). Coogan masterfully encapsulates the insincerity, opportunism and egotistical manipulation that Hollywood reeks so much of, and Molina is the thespian everyman who charmingly serves as fawner, fall man and foil all at once.

Additionally, Cate Blanchett's own send-up of celebrity selfdom--opposite herself--and rapper RZA's constant referencing to waiter Bill Murray by his full name, round out what ultimately are the real stimulants here.

Fly Tommy, fly

Among Hollywood's blockbuster actors, the one whose acting transcends his celebrity is Tom Hanks. While watching his flicks, you may notice that the guy on-screen looks like Hanks, but chances are you're too engrossed in his character to remind yourself who's playing it, whether it's Josh Baskin (Big), Forrest Gump (duh) or Viktor Navorski, the protagonist in Steven Spielberg's The Terminal.

Hanks revisits the role of the stranded--he defied expectation in 2000's Cast Away--as Viktor, who flies into America just as the government in his native Krakozhia (a fictitious Russian neighbor) has been toppled. As a result, the United States won't admit him, which means he's confined to a franchise-packed "international terminal" in a New York City airport. Since this is a film about the virtue of patience, Viktor is not desperate to escape. So, in the meantime, he learns English, befriends various employees, sets up living quarters in an abandoned gate, scores a job and, of course, falls in love with a lonely flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

This is where Hanks shines. Like many of his roles, it takes him minimal time to establish his character, absorb the details and dominate the scenery (production designer Alex McDowell's bustling terminal is such an illuminated utopia, it's no wonder Viktor feels so at home). He is upstaged by no one, though Kumar Pallana (playing a sadistic janitor) and Diego Luna (a hopelessly romantic food deliverer) come close, as unlikely, though stereotyped, comrades. The story and screenplay give Hanks reliable material to work with. And the film benefits from last-minute reshoots, which reportedly went with the less Hollywood ending. It's Spielberg, so some schmaltz still creeps through. But Hanks nails the final scenes with the same understated heroism that has warranted his credibility and validated his popularity. Earn this, indeed.