Movie Review: Sully
Rating: 4 Stars
A quick note about Hanks
There are two certain things that I am certain of in life:
- Airplanes will forever be one of mankind’s craziest and most terrifying inventions.
- Tom Hanks will emotionally invest me in his character no matter the role.
Forget the list of memorable performances, look past the longevity of his career, don’t even consider the fact that anytime you ask someone for their favorite actors that they’ll reply: De Niro, Denzel, Hanks…
Take any two minute clip from Sully, and just stop to watch the intricacies of Hanks’ expression. The way Hanks conveys emotion as simple as confidence to fear is bar none incredible. Call Sully a Hanks tour de force, a master class on subtlety, whatever you may see fit, Hanks carries a movie that with almost any other actor in his place, just wouldn’t have had the same effect.
Onto to the review
Sully is what I call the dramatic reenactment film, and I’ll faithfully admit I’m a sucker for these sorts of films, especially in sports. Moneyball may forever be my favorite sports film, but others like Radio, The Blind Side, Miracle, and Cool Runnings come to mind.
The true story is about a pilot, Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger, who crashes or lands, depending on who you ask, into the Hudson river between New York and New Jersey. “The Miracle on the Hudson”, as it was called, happened on a frigid January 15th afternoon eight years ago. US Airways Flight 1549 was two minutes into the air before a flock of birds were caught in and destroyed both engines. Captain Sullenberger lands in the Hudson, where rescue teams dispatch to get the passengers and crew out of the river. All 155 aboard the flight survived with no major injuries.
What I decided coming into Sully was to take the film for what it was, knowing that any film that tries to capture a real life event is going to take Hollywood liberties in its portrayal and script. All the sports titles I listed above have been scrutinized for their various inaccuracies. I’ve determined I’d rather play ignorant and enjoy a reenactment for what it is. Sully could be very faithful to the actual event, it could fabricate or dramatize scenes, I don’t care.
Did I mention Clint Eastwood directed this film? Eastwood obviously knows what he’s doing, and presents his film in a way that captivates in moments that could easily be found as meaningless or boring in other films.
The basis of the story is that a pilot heroically saved the lives of 155 people by executing an emergency landing in a river. The scene of the plane going down into the river is so mesmerizing that Eastwood has it played twice in the film. Neither of those instances are at the beginning.
The film opens on a plane that Sully is piloting that’s going down in New York. The plane is shown crashing into a building and exploding, which wakes Sully from his nightmare.
The film starts after the crash, where an investigation has Sully under fire for sending the plane into the Hudson rather than try and reach two nearby airports. Sully is accompanied by his copilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart, you may remember him as Harvey Dent), who is the reassuring companion trying desperately to keep Sully’s spirits up and remind him that he saved so many lives including his own.
Sully explains to the Department of Transportation in full confidence that his most logical choice was to go down in the river, but early simulations and test results have the Department skeptical. As the movie rolls along, Hanks slowly reveals the uncertainty in Captain Sullenberger. We could tell in the way Hanks looked that he was doubting his own volition, before he says it to his wife much later in the film. Even though at heart we know he made the right choice because of the result, Sully’s conscious couldn’t handle the thought of him making a decision that put so many lives in danger. Sully is duty-driven, and in the line of duty you must always make the right decision because lives are at stake. Sully is revealed to have been in the Air Force in a brief flashback.
Eastwood spends a few obligatory scenes on the stardom achieved by Sully as random people approach him, hug him, kiss him! Sully is shown to be very aloof and to himself, but he is layered and doesn’t lack conviction. What seems like such a simple character is really multidimensional and complex. This goes back to my prologue, Hanks breaks the barriers of reality and takes you into a world he wants you to believe in. Hanks brings you in the cockpit and makes you believe you’re on the plane.
I can only assume Eastwood wanted to keep the story true to form because the film feels honest. There’s a feeling of authenticity in the script and the direction of the film.
As the investigation continues, we see an abridged version of the crash, including communication with air traffic control. There’s a moment where the air traffic controller ominously says, people don’t survive water landings, and it’s a big ‘oh shit’ moment of the film. The moment was sold really well by actor Patch Darragh, who is convinced that the plane is doomed under his watch.
The investigation concludes with some live simulations of the pilots recreating Sully’s mythical flight as the Department of Transportation looked to prove that Sully could’ve glided back to an airport. Sully plays chess to the Department’s checkers and asks the amount of times the pilots practiced the landing. The Department responds 17. Sully then points out he had to take a certain amount of time to make a judgment call upon losing his engines. The Department alters the simulations and makes the pilots wait 35 seconds before making their turn back toward the airport. Both simulations crash.
Most of the tension in Sully is built around the conversation if he made the right choice. It took until the end of the film before Sully was fully confident that he made the right decision. So many miraculous people and moments are marred by controversy, but the Miracle on the Hudson was a moment too glorious to become lost in a grotesque narrative of, “Well this was right and this was wrong.” As far as I know from the film’s stance, Captain Sullenberger, his copilot, the passengers, the rescue teams and medical staff, they got it all right.
