Sully
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Written by: Todd Komarnicki - Based on the book "Highest Duty" by Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow
Starring: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O'Malley, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan, Jane Gabbert, Ann Cusack, Molly Hagan, Chris Bauer, Patch Darragh, Michael Rapaport, Jerry Ferrara
Biography/Drama - 95 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 Sep 2016
Written by: Todd Komarnicki - Based on the book "Highest Duty" by Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow
Starring: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O'Malley, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan, Jane Gabbert, Ann Cusack, Molly Hagan, Chris Bauer, Patch Darragh, Michael Rapaport, Jerry Ferrara
Biography/Drama - 95 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 Sep 2016
Clint Eastwood’s Sully is a celebration of a remarkable event and an even more remarkable man who remained cool, calm, and collected in the face of the impossible. Yet, it is also a philosophical exploration of hero vs. fraud. Just because the capable Captain landed his A320 jet liner in the middle of the Hudson River dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson,” did he have to? Were there other options? Realistically recreated, audiences get to cinematically experience what it was like in US Airways flight 1549, both from the frightened passengers point of view and the view from the cockpit. We all know what happens to the aircraft, but there is still a tension in the air as we witness the plane descend into the water. Eastwood’s account is technical and by the numbers but effective as his version of Sully second guesses himself over 208 seconds in his 40 year career.
“Brace, brace, brace - head down, stay down!” The flight attendant instructions are the most impactful sound as the passengers at first wonder what that noise was and move through the denial and bewilderment stages of their current situation. I was out of the country when Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger deftly guided his unpowered jet turned glider into a river and missed the 24-hour news cycle extravaganza, but the news and what it meant still reached all the way to an out of the way base in Iraq.
“Brace, brace, brace - head down, stay down!” The flight attendant instructions are the most impactful sound as the passengers at first wonder what that noise was and move through the denial and bewilderment stages of their current situation. I was out of the country when Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger deftly guided his unpowered jet turned glider into a river and missed the 24-hour news cycle extravaganza, but the news and what it meant still reached all the way to an out of the way base in Iraq.
A driver mentions to Sully (Tom Hanks, Bridge of Spies) that America is in the middle of two endless wars, millions are out of work, the economy hangs by a thread, but there is a real hero on the newspaper’s front page. How often does good news of such magnitude grace the above the fold section of the front page? 155 people felt unparalleled relief after being spared what should most likely have been certain death, but the rest of the world felt hope and good feelings that real heroes can still emerge from out of nowhere.
However, Sully tells Katie Couric he doesn’t feel like a hero. The members of the ad hoc National Transportation Safety Board Committee do not treat Sully like a hero either. Instead of charting a route to the uncertain river landing, why didn’t Sully just alter course to any number of local runways? Sully knows in his gut he could not have made it that far, but machines and Monday morning quarterbacks furrow their brows at such gut checks. But it’s called ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ for a reason. All 20,000 hours of Sully’s experience behind the controls told him the engines were gone and his nightmares remind him of the catastrophe that could have occurred had he aimed for a runway.
I believe part of what propelled Sully’s story and caught Clint Eastwood’s attention is that this guy, this pilot, looks and sounds like an Everyman. He respects his job and wants to get home to his family at the end of the day just like the rest of us commuters. Even though night terrors plague him, catastrophic daydreams attack him, and a nagging feeling of shock and uncertainly surround his every move, Tom Hanks plays Sully as a grounded straight shooter. There are no depths of despair or cries of celebration, just assurances all the passengers and crew made it out.
The entire episode lasted a mere three and a half minutes; therefore, how does a filmmaker, even one as capable as Clint Eastwood, fashion a full film and narrative arc around such a condensed timeline. Well, real life events are squeezed in for dramatic license and the water landing is replayed multiple times from different perspectives. There are even four simulation flights to sit through. Sully sticks firmly to the beeps and squeaks sector stiff-arming warmth and any hint of emotional drama. This sacrifices a greater sucker punch of feeling, but we are still nervous, excited, and relieved at the outcome. Eastwood could have easily manipulated the screen time and peril of the baby on board, but wisely or not, remains stoic about the possibility and sticks to the facts at hand.
Laura Linney (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) chews some screen time as Sully’s wife, Lorrie, back home in California, and must play the terrified and baffled spouse reacting to events on the phone as she paces the floor. Sully appears to be in Marriott prison while the NTSB conducts their investigation and Sully’s visits with his wife are confined to phone calls and assurances everything will be ok. The NTSB hearings did not actually take place until 18 months later, but something had to fill up the other hour of the film. Aaron Eckhart (London Has Fallen) functions as semi-comic relief as Sully’s co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, but I found a bit part played by Patch Darragh (The Visit) as the air traffic controller talking firsthand with Sully is the best part of the supporting cast in his limited role. There are genuine feel good scenes of the immediate rescue effort involving passenger ferries, the Red Cross, and the NYPD Scuba Team which is a fitting antithesis to Paul Greengrass’s United 93, another story about an airliner with a much different ending. We all know the answer to whether Sully is a hero or a fraud, but kudos to Clint Eastwood for giving us a chance to think about such a positive story over seven years later.
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