Good but padded

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2018)

In January 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenbeger, aka Sully, successfully ditches a powerless jet airliner in the Hudson River, resulting in the full complement of 155 passengers and crew surviving. The event happens in full view of numerous cameras, and becomes known as Miracle On The Hudson: Sully is a hero. But the subsequent enquiry seeks to establish the landing as pilot error by proving that Sully could have successfully landed back at La Guardia.
This dramatisation of real-life events is not unsuccessful, but is nonetheless a little odd.
Director Clint Eastwood reconstructs the moment from the bird striking the jet engine to the ditching extremely well. The trouble is that, as in real-life, this took only a few minutes (it was less than half an hour until everyone was safely on boats), so we get to see it twice from start to finish, several more times in fragments, and from a variety of angles.
And there is no suspense to it: we already know everyone survived.
So the thrust of this movie is the enquiry. Popular opinion has, to his embarrassment, labelled the self-effacing Sully as a hero, whereas the enquiry seeks to blame him for endangering lives, which will end his career.
There is actually some decent drama here: one, I didn't know how the enquiry had gone so, for me, the outcome was in doubt and, two, the public hearing at the conclusion of the enquiry is an excellent bit of theatre.
Tom Hanks is, as usual, a class act, especially playing an ordinary man displaying extraordinary qualities, but Aaron Eckhart as his co-pilot is as good. Laura Linney as Mrs Sullenberger is wasted, her role being simply to take part in distressed telephone calls.
If there is a problem here it is that the only real drama is the hearing, and there is perhaps insufficient meat on those particular bones to sustain a feature without adding a fair amount of inconsequential padding.
I'm still glad to have seen it, though.