Movie Reaction: Sully

Formula: Flight - Arthur

It's nice to have heroes: people who you don't feel guilty admiring. There aren't enough stories of good people doing good things. There's reasons for that, which I will get to, but it's refreshing to see Clint Eastwood taking some time to make a film about a man who did something good without needing to knock him down.

Sully, of course, tells the story of pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) in the immediate aftermath of his emergency landing on the Hudson River. He struggles with all the attention he is getting for, as he insists, "just doing his job" while a review board decides if the landing on the Hudson was the correct decision (as opposed to getting back to an airport). He calls his wife (Laura Linney) a few times and hangs out with his copilot (Aaron Eckhart) from the famous landing. He worries a little about the review committee (Mike O'Malley, Anna Gunn, and some other familiar faces) deciding that he made the wrong decision. Even that doesn't feel like too big of a threat.

That's the issue that the whole movie has: not enough story. The plane crash is nicely shot, and by featuring it as flashbacks, it doesn't front load the movie by putting the most exciting part at the beginning. Tom Hanks plays up Sully's concerns and how shaken he is by the near crash as much as he can. There just isn't enough there to do anything with. Sully isn't a drunk or a philanderer. There's nothing of substance to drag his name through the mud. The public loves him. Even if you didn't know the true events, the structuring of the movie tells you that in the big hearing, the committee is going to side with his decision to land on the Hudson. The stakes are low and the conflict is virtually nonexistent.

My immediate thought while watching this film is that it's the movie I wanted Flight to be. Both are about pilots pulling off amazing landings and culminate with hearings examining the events surrounding the landings. Of course, Denzel Washington's character was drunk during his landing. Flight only had slight interest in the investigation into the landing though, focusing more on Washington's alcoholism in general. I would've loved if Flight was more about the moral question of Washington's actions. Do he deserves praise for his great landing the plane better than anyone could've done or condemnation for doing it drunk? Sully lacks the kind of vices Washington has, so his hearing is much less intriguing.

The emergency landing is shot impressively. Instead of focusing on the panic of the passengers, Eastwood stays in the cockpit as much as possible. Survival isn't in question since the audience already knows that everyone lives, so he makes it about Sully's decision-making, his quick-thinking, and his instincts. It's quite wonderfully done, never forcing the tension. Sully and his copilot are professionals the whole time, following procedure when needed and using good judgment. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Watching people who are good at their job is pretty interesting. If it's not, that's a screenplay or directing problem.

Sully is a movie that I didn't need to see, but I enjoyed watching it. I left the movie smiling and happy with the idea that some things can be black and white, good or bad. No one is against 155 people surviving an emergency landing because the pilot did a great job. I didn't leave the theater conflicted in any way. There's value in that. And it's hard to be mad at any movie that's barely over and hour and a half long. The problem is that Sully's fateful flight only took 208 seconds, and the film struggles to fill the other 94 minutes.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend