Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Echart, Laura Linney
Director: Clint Eastwood
Genre: drama, biographical
Duration: 96 minutes
Showing: Cinema Magic, Metroplex Mall Naalya, Century Cinemax Acacia Mall.
In 2009, Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger made an emergency landing on the Hudson River. You read that right, on the river. After geese, disabled both engines of the plane carrying 155 passengers, this was the best course of action he could find. It worked because everyone got off the place safe and sound. Before you think you are reading the wrong part of Sqoop, these events actually happened and are what inspired this week’s movie, Sully.
Tom Hanks plays Sully, a pilot with 40 years’ experience under his belt. After he makes the emergency landing, saving all these people’s lives and things are not as smooth and rosy as you would expect. He is a hero after all, right? However, getting back to normal life seems impossible when he is inundated by media and investigations into the emergency landing. Questions arise that put, not just his reputation on the line but also affects his family. As he says, he starts to feel that his 40 years as a pilot would come down to those 208 seconds aboard that plane
It reads like a simple plot, which it is. However, the movie takes you into Sully’s very soul as you feel Sully’s burden of wondering whether he had made the best decision that day. In short, it has both Clint Eastwood and Hanks’ fingerprints all over it. Clint has a knack for making something as common (in movies at least) as a plane making an emergency landing into a spectacular event. You will empathise with the passengers, shake your head at others, laugh at some, all while pressing your feet into the ground in an attempt to stop the plane yourself.
Also, props for turning 208 seconds into 96 minutes, although there are moments when you feel like they really tried to drag it out. That still does not stop this from being a very good movie.