Sully ****

In 2009 Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger became an overnight hero when his engines failed he landed a commercial airliner in the Hudson river saving every passenger on board. When Sullenberger wrote his book the film was almost certainly coming and come it has. 

Clint Eastwood is no stranger to directing real life stories after J.Edgar, Invictus, American Sniper it would appear Sully is good hands. 

The problem with taking on such a story is that the premise outcome is already public knowledge and still very fresh in our minds, but Eastwood focuses on the more unknown aspect of the tale. We see the investigation into Sully that focuses on the point of view that he didn't take the right course of action and did instead make a reckless choice that in danger every passenger on board. We see the private struggle between coping with instant celebrity, be celebrated a hero whilst struggling with self doubt and accusations. 

The pacing of the film is  a difficult one to get right. After all Clint's one big playing card is the actual landing itself that's the high point after that interest can sway. Eastwood knows this keeping this Ace up his sleeve for half the film then showing it a few times from different perspectives and at different points of the film with every time it being totally engaging.

It's hard to imagine anyone other that Hanks in the role of Sully. He captivates his Jimmy Stewart everyday guy to great effect whilst also capturing the characterisation of Sully. Hanks is lifetime competent actor to Sully's lifetime competent pilot and the two combinations truly complement each other.

As good as the performance is it can't be truly great as there isn't enough juicy dialogue for Hanks to have or to be able to more diagrammatically delivery as it would deject from the true life aspect of the tale which they seem to rigorously honour. For instance at the most exciting moment of the film during the landing scenes the filmmakers stick to the exact transcript of the real pilots which is extremely limited given the 280 seconds entirety of the event.

Most Hollywood films would have ignored that and sexed it up with Sully dodging buildings, ringing his Wife before impact, give a monologue over the meaning of life and then spend 20 minutes landing. No, not here what happened is what's on the screen and that integrity is what is refreshing earnest to see.    

In fact Hanks did say that the real Sully was often on set and set and lent glorious attention to detail about every aspect of the film for authenticity to real life even down to the pens in the rooms. With this said during one scene at the Marriott a pen and paper sits in the background by the lamp and I had a feeling that was the same one from 2009.

Creative licence has obviously been taken for the scenes that make up the movie's main theme which is the investigation over whether Sully was a hero or a dangerous fraud.  I'm not sure how much that was amped to give the movie some welly. After all if you're going to have a villain you might have as well make it the National Transportation Safety Board! 

The NTSB were naturally not impressed with their Pantomime villainy portrayal with a real life Investigator going as far to say it was "mean spirited dishonesty". This might explain with a film with so much authenticity they decided to change the names of the investigation team.

Other scenes that include back flashes to Sully's very early days of flying do show the scale of the man's career but don't feel tremendously needed and perhaps were stocking fillers to the script.

However this is a true life story which has a glorious feel good aspect to it showing us that once in while human beings are capable of conducting some glorious feats. A man who is by no means perfect after forty years experience engaged on a course of action over a mere 280 seconds that defined odds, saved lives and showed in modern times of daily depressing news that Miracles can still happen. 

And this one happened on the Hudson. 

By Chris Hembury