Solidly made but badly paced

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2016)

The miraculous events of January 15th, 2009, when veteran pilot Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger was forced to make an emergency landing in New York's Hudson River after a flock of birds flew by and took out both of the plane's engines, were reported widely here in the UK, with the media quite rightly branding the feel-good story as an act of heroism by a humble man who had dedicated 42 years of his life to his job. Almost as if the decision-makers felt like the people in the UK were too ignorant to recall a famous and extremely recent incident from the U.S., Sully has received the distracting subtitle of Miracle on the Hudson, making it sound like a TV movie aired by Channel 5 in the process. But this is directed by Clint Eastwood, and with the screen legend behind the camera and one of its most celebrated talents in front of it, Tom Hanks, Sully can only mean one thing - the arrival of awards season.
While the title may suggest a hastily-made cash-in for bored housewives and the unemployed to consume during a weekday afternoon in front of the TV, Sully has Eastwood at his most accomplished, delivering a solidly-made, well-acted tale of heroism in his usual clinical fashion of shooting quickly and without fuss. If you know the story, which you likely do, the opening scene may seem predictable as Sully and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) buckle in and take off, until disaster strikes. Rather than heading to the Hudson, the plane takes a left turn and is soon flying dangerously close to skyscrapers, eventually clipping one and going down in a ball of flames. This turns out to be Sully's nightmare, as he struggles with the overwhelming media attention and the questions posed by the National Transportation Security Board (NTSB). The latter are investigating Sully's actions, and whether the data secured after the landing indicates that it was possible to steer the plane safely back to LaGuardia airport or to nearby New Jersey.
Sully's inability to quite comprehend the sudden mass media coverage and the spontaneous hugs and kisses he receives by the adoring public forms the crux of Eastwood's film, which is, after all, based on an action that lasted a mere 208 seconds. Hanks plays the role with a quiet, dignified humanity, something the actor has mastered in more recent years, despite not receiving an Oscar nomination since 2000's Cast Away. He is so humane in fact, that he needs to remind the NTSB that the very thing they're investigating - human error - is just that; human. Regardless of how many data checks are carried out or simulations are conducted, the human factor cannot be replicated. This was a decision made in a split second, with the knowledge that the lives of hundreds of people are in his hands weighing down on him and decades of experience guiding his hands. Hanks may not get award recognition once again here, but it is undoubtedly a terrific, understated performance.
Sully ultimately struggles with deciding how to pace itself, frequently jumping back and forth in time between the events before, during and after the landing, as well as a couple of brief scenes depicting the pilot's early days learning to conquer the skies. The events itself is also shown multiple times from different perspectives, including an air-traffic controller who believes the plane to have surely crashed after disappearing off the radar, with unnecessary focus on a collection of passengers whose stories quickly descend into sentiment and cliché. It all seems like padding for a film that would have surely worked better telling a straight- forward story of a man's act of heroism and the emotional after- effects, rather than trying to juice up the tale by turning the ones investigating the incident into little more than snarling suits. When Sully simply lets Hanks do his thing, it's great drama, and the re-enactment itself is as equally terrifying as it is thrilling, but the moments in between drag the film down into tedious waters.