After A Slow Start This Becomes A Superb Story

Rating: 8/10 (11 August 2018)

I thought "Sully" got off to a bit of a slow start. I remember the incident well from news reports - Captain Sullenberger landing the massive Airbus A320 in the Hudson River just a few minutes after takeoff because of dual engine failures - and everyone surviving the incident. It sounds like an exciting story, but it's made pretty clear from the start that this is going to be far more about the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board than about the incident itself. Which, I suppose, is understandable. As is pointed out several times in the movie, the entire incident lasted about 208 seconds. You can't really make a movie about a 208 second incident. And, indeed, for the first little while this movie had me a bit disoriented, wondering what really was going on. But the story picks up its pace well, and in the end director Clint Eastwood did a magnificent job of moving back and forth from the narrative about the investigation to what actually happened in the cockpit - and the cockpit scenes were dramatic and seemingly (to me, admittedly a non-pilot) meticulously recreated - as was the ultimate evacuation of the plane afterward. It really was a tribute not just to Sully, but to all of the flight crew, who acted professionally and calmly and ensured the survival of their passengers.
The NTSB didn't come across quite as well. Sullenberger became (understandably) a hero almost from the moment this happened. After all, it happened in broad daylight in one of the world's largest cities - lots of people saw it. The depiction of the NTSB investigators was that they were antagonistic toward Sully, perhaps either disturbed or jealous that his media acclaim was getting way ahead of their work, and they came across as people looking to place blame for the incident rather than people who were looking for the truth. The actual investigators disputed how they were portrayed, and my understanding is that even Sullenberger disagreed with the liberties that the writers and Eastwood took with this part of the story. I suppose there was a feeling that a movie has to have a "bad guy" to create dramatic tension - and the NTSB filled that role perfectly, even if the portrayal was unfair.
Tom Hanks is obviously the star of this movie. Aaron Eckhart is along for the ride as Scully's co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, but everything in this movie focuses on Hanks. His performance, I thought, was predictably excellent. It's an understated performance - not high on typical drama or excitement, but portraying Sully as a naturally humble man who finds himself thrust into the spotlight and tormented by the thought that he could have done something different - something safer - although it's made clear that for all his thoughts about alternatives in the end he's confident that he made the right decision - the evidence for that being that all 155 people on the plane survived.
Ultimately, after that slow start that lasted for maybe 15 or 20 minutes when the movie seemed a bit off focus, this turned out to be an excellent story of a man who is, indeed, a real hero. (8/10)