Starring: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, and Laura Linney
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 96 mins. Reviewed in Sep 2016
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This American biographical drama tells the story of US Airways Flight 1549 which made an emergency crash landing on the Hudson River, Manhattan, New York City, seven years ago. The event received world wide media attention. The film is based on the autobiography, “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters”, published by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow in 2010. Clint Eastwood adapted the book to direct the movie, and it was Sullenberger who flew the plane.
On January 15, 2009, Captain “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and First Officer, Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) took off from La Guardia Airport, New York in an Airbus A320 plane, with 155 passengers, bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. Three minutes into the flight, a flock of large Canada geese collided with the plane and crippled its engines. Multiple bird strikes occurred. With engine power gone and no airport in sight, Sully glided his disabled plane into the freezing waters of Hudson River, parallel to 48th. St., Manhattan.
All lives were saved. Captain Sully was heralded immediately as a hero for his actions, and both Captain and crew were awarded a Medal to celebrate their “heroic” achievement. Sullenberger was described as the pilot responsible for “the most successful ditching in aviation history”. An investigation by the National Transport Safety Board was conducted, which aroused media scrutiny, and the Board’s arguments forced Sully to put his reputation on the line. The film tells the story behind the turmoil of what occurred.
Tom Hanks is almost perfect for the role of Sully, and Clint Eastwood is just the right Director to extract dramatic complexity from the intricacies of human motivation behind what happened that day. The film is less a biographical display of attributed heroism (though the themes of heroism and personal courage are never lost), than a taut and attention-grabbing thriller about what occurred, and why. The brilliance of its editing is especially manifest. The film starts with Sully’s nightmares of what could have happened but didn’t, and grows in intensity to highlight the tension of the plane’s actual crash landing, and the effect of Sully’s calm rationality on the Board’s conclusions.
Hanks plays Sully as one of Eastwood’s typically conflicted heroes. Eastwood shows, not unnaturally, that Sully, his crew, and his passengers, feared for their very lives. The report of the investigative Board reflected additional issues, however, and pressure was placed on Sully to think that the crash may have been his fault. Although Sully had loyal and loving support from his wife, Lorraine (Laura Linney), and there was wide, public support for his actions, significant questions were raised: Did Sully put the safety of his plane and passengers second, and were there alternative actions that were possible? Eastwood has provocative things to say about defensive insurance concerns, and “the avalanche” of media sensationalism. In many ways, the film brilliantly explores what happened to Flight 1549 in terms of its human, corporate, and media implications.
The film mixes true events with penetrating analysis of Sully’s character. It maintains the tension of the actual crash, and its cinematography is enhanced by actual archival footage, that gives amazing reality to an incredible water landing. Hanks and Eastwood give the story a very human face, and the film is an emotionally moving portrayal of a man caught critically at choice point.
This is a highly thoughtful and satisfying film. Eastwood’s films always entertain, but they also push viewers to think for themselves. The film gives a very real Oscar chance to Tom Hanks as Best Actor for 2016 – his subtle interpretation of Sully is wonderfully pensive and understated. With 35 movies now behind Clint Eastwood at age 87, this could also be Eastwood’s last attempt to direct.
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