Sully

When I heard they were going to be making a movie about Sully Sullenberger and the "Miracle on the Hudson" I honestly was a little bit puzzled. For those who do not know, Sully was the pilot for a commercial plane that had both engines fail from a bird strike and had to land the plane on the Hudson River. While watching the movie does point out how this is actually a pretty impressive feat, it still doesn't exactly explain how you make a feature length movie about it. They even say in the movie, the entire event took 208 seconds. How can you make a feature length movie on that?

Sully centers on the title character Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks) a day after the incident. Sully and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles (played by Aaron Eckhart) are still reeling from the events of the previous day and then they have to go in for an initial investigation. The US is already praising Sully as a hero but this initial investigation starts to shed some doubt on whether or not Sully could have made it back to the airport and question whether or not he had to land the plane in the Hudson.

The thing I really appreciate about this movie is that it mainly takes place in, at most, the course of a week as the initial investigation looks into the crash and tries to figure out what exactly happened. Sully and Skiles are certain they did nothing wrong and landing it in the Hudson was their only option to save the lives of the 155 people aboard the plane.

What's even better is that while the entire country sees Sully as a hero, he just wants to get back to flying and have this entire ordeal behind him. I remember this from when the incident happened. I remember him being very calm and very humble the entire time. And that's what he is in the movie. He doesn't see himself as the hero, he just wants to go back to the way things were. And while he's confident he did the right thing, he starts having self doubt about his actions.

And this is where some of the flashbacks come in. I will say that some of the flashbacks about when he first started flying or when he flew for the Air Force felt a little bit shoehorned in there and not exactly relevant, but the really interesting flashbacks were back to the faithful day on January 15th 2009 when you actually see what happened and the bravery of not only Sully, but his crew, the flight attendants, as well as the responders. At the end of the movie they mention that there were so many responders on sight willing to help without question that the entire rescue took about 24 minutes.

These flashbacks are really what make the movie good. And yeah they feel a little bit repetitive at times but it works because Sully is replaying this moment in his head over and over again trying to be certain that he did the right thing and it plays really well.

I have no idea why I would doubt anything starring Tom Hanks wouldn't fly (no pun intended). The guy is just a master at becoming a character and making you feel for that character throughout. You feel the turmoil he's in as he questions himself. You see the calm but precise reaction to the incident and how his brain doesn't really turn off until he knows everyone on his plane is safe. The best parts of the movie is how everyone from the crew, to the passengers, to the air traffic controller who talked to him until the plane went down all mention how he was incredibly calm and had everything under control. Tom Hanks just nails it. He nails all the scenes where he's being cross examined by the airlines and insurance companies as well as the personal scenes between him and his wife (played by Laura Linney) who also nails her part. I don't think I've ever seen a bad Tom Hanks movie and Sully is definitely a good one.

And at the end of the day, Sully is just a likable guy. Whether its Tom Hanks or the real Sully, you can't help but look up to the guy given the entire circumstance. He's not show boating, he doesn't gloat, he's just proud of what he did and wants to go about his business. My dad looked up to Sully a lot because he was just a Hero.

And that's something really cool that I definitely think prompted this movie to be made.

There's a line in the film where a guy says that 2009 was already off to a horrible start and then you think this incident was going to be another horrible event. But because of Sully, it became a moment of pride. One of my favorite moments in the movie is the people of New York looking out their windows in terror as a plane plummets to the ground. You can see the flashbacks of 9/11 in people's eyes and they're scared. And then everything turns out alright. But its not by accident. My other favorite part was watching everybody respond so quickly. No questions, no delay, everybody just runs to help these freezing people on the wing of a plane. The movie underlines the fact that no plane has ever had a water landing and had no casualties. But at the end of the day, 155 people were on that plane and 155 people survived. Everybody lives.

Sully isn't a long movie, in fact I was really surprised on how short it was. Its not drawn out and its not trying to be more than it is. While this movie might come up in some Oscar discussion probably, I doubt its going to win anything. But what this movie really is is just a movie that makes you feel good. It makes you feel like we got a win back in 2009 and it was a win we all needed. Its simple and to the point and its done very well along the way.

I really liked all the performances from Hanks, to Eckhart, to Linney, hell even Skyler from Breaking Bad is in this movie. I think the direction of the film from Clint Eastwood and I'm really glad I saw it. Is the movie perfect? No, not really. Like I said, there are a some choppy flashbacks, and despite everything, it is a movie about 208 seconds on a plane. It is really milking a lot out of very little. However, I must restate, I really liked this movie. It made me feel good and I thought it was well crafted. If you haven't seen Sully yet, I suggest going to see it.

What did you think? What do you remember about January 15th 2009? Do you think Clint Eastwood should have made a movie about Sully Sullenberger? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. This was a funny bit. They had Tom Hanks on Jimmy Kimmel and brought on Sully as a surprise. Sully then did a trailer for the parody Tom Hanks biopic, Hanks. Enjoy!