Sully

Synopsis: The true story of how Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger successfully brought off the emergency landing on the Hudson River of an Airbus A320 with 155 passengers onboard, only to find himself almost immediately the target of an inquiry by air accident investigators.

Cinema-goers know that a Clint Eastwood film means a solidly-crafted, thoughtfully measured and resonately patriotic story of men doing manly things. His latest offering, the story of an everyday American hero beset by the sniping criticisms of bureaucratic minds, is no exception.

All credit goes to the now 86 year old director for driving his message home straight and true but as much as the event which is its inspiration is extraordinary it doesn’t have the entertainment value of Robert Zemeckis’s 2012 fictional air-crash investigation movie, Flight,  While aeronautic buffs will enjoy the technical jargon and  the recreation of the accident is excellent (to pad matters out the "forced water landing" is played twice), there's not a whole lot more to the film other than a silver-haired Hanks in various locations looking worn and worried and occasionally seeking reassurance from his co-pilot (Aaron Eckhardt sporting a mo’ that looks like a small marsupial has gone to sleep on his upper lip).  Although there are a couple of brief flashbacks to Sully's younger days, the rest of the film amounts to his unexplained attempt by a panel of investigators to crucify him and he  periodically ringing his wife for repeated and repetitious “ I love you/I love you too” exchanges.

There are however, two draw-cards to the film. One is Hanks’s performance. Although he’s long played the ordinary American middle-class male under duress (and indeed is currently doing so in A Hologram For The King) here he plays the role with a quiet dignity and we really feel the pain that Sully goes through as he struggles to maintain his self-image in the face of media and official criticism.

Based on Captain Sullenberger’s account of the incident “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters” Eastwood’s film well captures the meaning of that title and this is the film’s other strong point - its stressing of not just the human factor but the humanity that the story exemplifies. As we are all more or less aware, every time we fly we are putting our lives in other people’s hands and this implies a quite remarkable level of trust and shared vulnerability.  In this respect the real life footage that plays over the end credits of Sully and his wife addressing the survivors is an important part of the film and should not be missed.

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