Sully

I definitely cry at the movies. Usually, it's near the end of the movie when it is reaching the emotional climax. But, there are some exceptions.  In We Are Marshall, the big emotional scene is only 15 minutes into the movie, and I always start crying at the beginning of Apollo 13 when they are watching the Apollo 11 Moon landing. But the effect of Sully on me was just crazy. I was verklempt from the beginning to the end of this movie. I was in tears during the rescue scenes. I'm sure that some PTSD is still there from 9/11 and I cannot watch planes flying low over New York City without having my heart in my mouth. Whatever it is, Sully taps into something very deep.

As everyone already knows, the story of Sully, tells the story of Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who made the only safe water landing of a commercial airliner in history. Tom Hanks, who else, plays Sully and Aaron Eckhart plays Jeff Skiles his co-pilot on the flight. Sully is extremely low key except when it isn't. What I mean by that is that the flight itself and the rescue are so emotional, and rather than have those events play out at the beginning or the end of the movie, it is very cleverly interleaved with the events afterward so that you can't really relax at all. Most of the time, Sully is showing the actual flight or a simulation of the flight or Sully's nightmares about the flight. 

All this comes from a great director, Clint Eastwood. I may not agree with his politics, but he can really make a movie. He is 86 years old and is still one of the most productive directors in Hollywood, having made 10 movies in the last decade. Sully is very well done. It is mostly about the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigation of what happened during the 208 seconds of US Airways Flight 1549 which ran into a flock of birds shortly after takeoff and lost both engines necessitating an emergency landing in the Hudson River. Or did it? The movie makes a big deal out of whether Sully had time to turn the plane around and fly back to LaGuardia. In this, Sully departs from the true facts for dramatic effect. No spoilers, but the NTSB is a bit peeved at how they are portrayed in the movie. You can read about it (Spoiler Alert) here. But the end result is the same. Sully is an f-ing hero. 

Hanks plays Sully much like he played James Lovell in Apollo 13 with an understatement that makes the performance more powerful. Eckhart follows Hanks lead. The real life Sully and Skiles are probably like this, just the kind of guys who you would want piloting your plane. Laura Linney is a bit, ok more than a bit, wasted as Sully's wife. She gets to cry a lot. There are some other familiar faces including Katie Couric playing herself, Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad), Jamey Sheridan (Spotlight), and Michael Rapaport. But Sully is all about Sully and the landing in the Hudson. I don't know who else could have played Sully other than Tom Hanks. Go see it and bring a box of Kleenex.