Director: Clint Eastwood Starring: Tom Hanks Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Genre(s): Drama Rated: PG-13 (For some peril and brief strong language) |
On January 15, 2009, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger
attempted to make an emergency water landing on the Hudson River in New
York. A flock of geese had taken out
both engines and the plane could have easily crashed had something not been
done. No airline had ever landed in the
river before and not killed everyone on board, so this was indeed a desperate
last attempt to land. Miraculously, all
of the 155 passengers and crew survived, and our captain was hailed as a hero
to the world. It was such a fantastic
event that it seems silly that there would even be a controversy regarding the
incident. Most of the time when planes
go down, no one walks away alive. When
we’re lucky, a few people survive. In
this situation, everyone got to go home to their families. That is such a great achievement that even I
get teary eyed just thinking about it.
Despite how lucky everyone was, the airline had insurance
issues with how to collect money for the plane, and in Clint Eastwood’s “Sully”
we follow the events where our brave captain (played by Tom Hanks) is treated
as anything but a hero. He is questioned
for his judgment. He is told that
computer simulators showed that he could have glided the plane back to the
airport, everyone would have been safe, and the airline would still have a
plane to show for it. Interestingly,
“Sully” isn’t even really about the man it follows. This is a movie about money, and how greed poisons
even the good things in life. For the
airline, they are more interested in the property they lost. For the insurance companies, they don’t want
to pay for that property. It doesn’t
take long for the media to turn into the fear mongers they are when they start
publicly questioning whether Sully’s actions were reckless.
I mean, sure, there was a chance that landing in
the river would have killed everyone, but from my perspective this was always
going to be the case. The plane was
going down. When a plane goes down the
pilot doesn’t have much time to decide what to do, and so Sully made the call
he felt would result is the least amount of damage and casualties. That everyone walked away breathing was of
brief comfort to the companies that stood to gain and lose money in all
this. Eastwood is very good at
highlighting this problem while managing to keep the focus on Sully as a human
being who was simply doing his job and (thankfully) managed to do it really
well on this particular day. Tom Hank’s
performance is very human and touching.
Eastwood’s direction is largely good, and the scenes of the plane going
down ranks among some of the best he’s made.
That said, I am…confused, by the editing of the film. I don’t know if it reflects a world that
needs to know what is going to happen before anything actually does, but for
some reason the story starts with Sully being investigated for recklessness,
and then flashes back to the crash. I
don’t understand why Eastwood structured the film this way or what he hoped to
accomplish by doing so. Showing the
events in chronological order would have made much more sense, as the movie
would flow in a way where life is normal, something happens, there is brief
happiness, and then reality comes in to remind us that, no, we truly can’t just
be happy everything turned out fine.
Since most people seeing this likely aren’t pilots, it’s not like the
questions of whether or not he made the right call in trying to land the plane
on the water can even be in question.
Maybe a pilot who knows the lingo could throw in his two cents, but for
the average person all they’ll see is a giant machine about to fall out of the
sky.
I want to stress that restructuring the story doesn’t make
this a bad movie, only that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and it ruins
what could have been a very strong structure. It is because of this that “Sully” is not the
home run it could have easily been. The
actors are all good in their roles. The
screenplay is solid. The direction is
great. The movie was filmed with IMAX
camera’s, and seeing it in that format results in quite an intense
experience. The movie might even be
better than the star grade initially suggests.
However, Eastwood has been in this business a long time and has directed
a lot of great movies. I believe he
should have known better than to edit the film the way he did, and for that
reason I can’t help but watch “Sully” with a little bit of disappointment, even
if its heart is in the right place.
|
|
 |
| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is one use of the f word and the plane crashing is a little intense. Recommended for ages 10 and up.
|