Sully

Grade: B

Director Clint Eastwood has put together a fine biopic with Sully, a movie depicting Captain Sullenberger’s emergency landing of a Charlotte-bound plane in the Hudson River, which ended up saving everybody. I vaguely remember hearing this story when it happened in January 2009, but what I didn’t realize (and maybe it’s been “blown up” here for dramatic effect) were the troubles and the scrutiny Sully was under for a while in the aftermath. Here, we see him under the seething, scowling, watchful eyes of a board that is convinced – based on simulations they have run – that he didn’t have to resort to the water landing, and could have potentially gotten the plane to at least two runways. The movie chugs along effectively, and at a nice lean hour and 35 minutes, is easy to digest. Tom Hanks, ever the paragon of sincerity, puts his usual likable stamp on the title character, and leads a well-utilized cast featuring several familiar faces including Aaron Eckhart (what a chin cleft that man has), Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad’s Skyler White), and Laura Linney as Sully’s wife. I think she spent all of her scenes on the phone, and we can presume that they filmed just her half of the conversation while she was present. Always an unenviable task for an actor to have a “dialogue” on the phone, and God bless her for doing it so much here. The main theme, written by Eastwood, sounds distractingly like Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s opera Turandot, and doesn’t do the film any favors. Also, I would have liked to have found out what happened to Sully when the smoke cleared and the dust settled. Did he ever get to fly again? You’d better look it up, because you won’t find out here. All in all, though, this is a touching piece of work. My favorite line, paraphrased: “It’s been a long time since New York City has had news this good, especially with a plane involved.”
Grade: B

P.S. – Fun fact: comedian Brian Regan has done a bit in his act – not only from the same album, but they’re on the same track – where he mentions the stories of Captain Phillips and Captain Sullenberger. Two characters played by Tom Hanks.