I’m sometimes surprised how fast time flies by. I can still remember the news about a plane landing on the Hudson river and that the captain, Chesley Sullenberger was considered a hero. If you would have asked me how long ago that took place I would probably answer that it was two or three years ago. I guess I’m getting old as this event took place in 2009. Clint Eastwood decided to bring this story to the big screen in the form of Sully, in which Tom Hanks stars.
With a film like this you know in advance what has happened. It’s up to a director make sure you take the viewer into the story and make them feel that moment, but also have enough story to fill the rest of the movie. Eastwood succeeds in making the event which flight 1549 by US Airways experienced come to life in a great way. It shows the pilots doing what they are trained to do: Not to panick and follow procedures.
The rest of the movie is about the court case after in which the main question is whether or not Sully might have been able to return to the airfield and by not doing so might have unnecessarily endangered the lives of those in the plane. It’s this part which is less convincing. The people who are questioning Sully and his copilot (played by Aaron Eckhart) almost seem like caricatures. There isn’t much room for nuance and that resulted in some criticism about the film. I must admit that I’m not the biggest fan of the movies Eastwood has made (I didn’t like American Sniper as it made the story more beautiful than it was) and here I never felt pulled into what was happening on-screen. The part which deals with the accident is definitely worth watching, but everything else didn’t move me, despite great acting by most of the cast.
