Don't watch if you're going on a flight

Rating: 7/10 (7 December 2016)

Back in 2009 US Airways pilot Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger pulled off an amazing feat, landing a passenger plane into the Hudson River after both engines were damaged by a bird strike. His story became international news and which led to Sully writing a book and been adapted into a Hollywood film.
Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart start as Sully and First Officer Jeff Skiles, the pilots on that fateful day, looking at how they handled the disaster and the aftermath, being investigated by the federal authorities and the media attention whilst Sully shows signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Sully is told in the space of a few days and has usual structure, starting with the investigation already taking place and the incident is shown in flashbacks. The advantage of using this framing device is it prevent the film from showing its best scenes, the crash - a mistake that 2012's Flight did. But the film adaptation also just jumps around from event to event, repeating some of the same moments. The framing device of all the investigation does not make the most compelling of drama, especially when we know the actual outcome.
The film has been criticised for making the investigators too aggressive and trying to blame the pilots for the incident, considering them reckless and putting lives in danger. The worst moment is at the end of the film so this is a spoiler warning: the investigators reveal the left engine lifted from the river and verifies the pilots claims that both engines failed - leading to question why wasn't that revealed earlier? Tom Hanks is brilliant as the lead role, adding to his recent run of real live roles. With Eckhart they had a calm authority to them as they face a crisis. They never lose their cool as they handle their job with absolute professionalism. As Sully Hanks has celebrity thrust upon them, being a adored by random strangers he meets and carries on with a stoic attitude. It's refreshing to Eckhart in a serious film, instead of being a stuck in subpar genre films.
The best scene in the film is the plane crash as the pilots have to land the plane safely whilst keeping their cool. We get glimpses of some of the passengers on the plane, like an older Jewish woman, a man and his adult sons and a woman with a baby and also show people like air traffic control and witnesses in the buildings. It gave the film a slight air of Paul Greengrass' United 93. The film has the line that it has been a long time since New York had any good news, especially involving a plane and Sully suffers visions of what could have happened and the plane crashes into the city - the imaginary being like 9/11.
Sully is a perfectly solid true life story and has some terrific moments - but as a whole fairly middle of the road.