Rating: A-
In the filmic reincarnation of that famous “2009 Miracle on the Hudson” where Captain “Sully” Sullenberger made a successful emergency water landing after hitting a flock of geese soon after takeoff—director Clint Eastwood makes some effort to keep his personal presence in the background, and the story’s narrative to the front.
As noted above, Sully follows the events immediately prior, during, and after US Airways flight 1459 which took off from LaGuardia airport in New York, and landed in the Hudson River just a few minutes later. When you stop and really think about the content of the film—covering a flight that had a total lift off/touchdown time of 208 seconds and the government persecution of a pilot who pretty much everyone hailed as a hero—you do begin to wonder how this even became a feature length film.
And while we’re looking critically, the heavily dramatised portrayal of the NTSB (National Transport Safety Board) in their bloody minded witch-hunt of Captain Sully—which occupies most of the second half of the film—kind of just falls into very ‘Eastwood-ish’ political binaries around ‘man vs. government’ that have made him such a polarising character in Hollywood of late.
But the shining light out of all of this is (of course) Tom Hanks. His portrayal of Sully is fantastic, and he manages to captivate the audience throughout the entire film, playing the well trodden path of dutiful pilot/humble hero/American everyman with the freshness and style that only Hanks could. Adding to that, Eastwood does do a thorough job with the in-flight scenes, invoking very real feelings of panic and fear as you see the plane beginning to go down. Overall, the Sully is quite evenly split between hacky political undertones from Eastwood and his band of merry brothers, and quality in-flight cinematography, supported by (yet another) stellar performance by Tom. I’m choosing to roll with the positives here, and say that this one is a worthwhile watch.