Sully

I have no idea how Clint Eastwood can keep pumping out films as he approaches 90. The man is a machine! Today I am looking at his take on pilot Chelsey ‘Sully’ Sullenberger’s miraculous emergency water landing of an airplane with 155 passengers on the Hudson River. The real life incident happened in 2009, and it did not take long for Clint and Hollywood to come knocking on Sully’s door to make a big screen adaptation of the event in 2016 (trailer).

Tom Hanks portrays Sully, and Aaron Eckhart plays his first officer, Jeff Skiles. I remember going into the film curious on how the film was going to portray the emergency landing, but also curious on how they were going to pad out the remaining length of the film. According to the bonus feature interviews, Sully’s memoir was the inspiration to make the movie, but they knew most theater goers were going to want it to focus on the 2009 landing. The filmmakers include a couple brief flashbacks and hints of Sullenberger’s past because Sully keeps coming back to the heroic landing on the Hudson. Sometimes in the form of nightmares and daydreams of how it could have went wrong, and finally the whole landing and rescue sequence broken up in a couple sequences during the film’s duration. The cinematography for the landing and rescue was a breathtaking experience. I had the sound pumping on my surround sound headphones, and Clint’s team spared no expense at making that emergency landing come to life. Just thinking back to that day nearly 11 years ago gives me chills recalling how that day played out on the news and social media in real time.

So how did the filmmakers fill out the remainder of the film is the burning question, and that answer is with Sully and Jeff enduring a prompt and rigorous investigation by the airlines to ensure proper protocol was followed. I have no idea what the real-life airline investigators look like, but Clint went out of his was way to make Jamey Sheridan, Anna Gunn and Mike O’Malley come off as haggard-looking, antagonizing investigators trying to get Sully and Jeff to slip up in a ‘gotcha’ moment. I have no idea how it came across in reality, but how Sully essentially tells off the investigators and proves their accusations wrong in the film’s final scenes was an especially gratifying moment.

Their grilling of Sully causes a lot of distress at home and the film periodically bounces back to Sully trying to keep spirits high on the phone with his wife and in other scenes where Sully and Jeff meet up and assess how they are coping in the midst of the sudden fame and whirlwind lives they now have. Some of these scenes work while others not-so-much. The ones that stood out for me were scenes where Sully and Jeff meet up outside their hotel to try and clear the cobwebs, and another where Sully and Jeff take a mini-recess from a big investigator hearing and come out of it confidant that they did their jobs. I could have done without a few of these buffer scenes between the heavy duty landing and investigator scenes, but for the most part they do not get in the way, and some of them are legit entertaining.

There are three bonus features clocking in at just under an hour total, and all three are well worth viewing. Moment by Moment features the real Jeff and Sully breaking down everything that happened on the Hudson landing. Man behind the Miracle is about Sully’s personal aircraft career and his life before and after the landing. Shooting Sully shows the special effects and cameras used to film the landing and interviews the cast and crew about Eastwood’s filming style.

I cannot help but compare Sully to Denzel Washington in 2012’s Flight. Like Sully, the emergency landing in Flight is the takeaway scene from it, but Denzel’s character also has an entertaining post-investigation fallout and hearing process. When comparing Sully to Flight, both of Flight’s emergency landing and non-aircraft scenes are undoubtedly more entertaining. However, real life proves to be the difference maker in why I prefer and recommend Sully more. It also certainly does not hurt that Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart’s performances make Sully go from a ‘just YouTube the crash scene’ to ‘hey, this whole film is actually pretty good’ material!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past