Everyone at work has been raving about this film. Most of them not even knowing that it is based on true events. Like come’on man..
Sully is a 2016 biography/drama film directed by Clint Eastwood and based on the autobiography Highest Duty by Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow. The film stars Tom Hanks as Captain Sully Sullenberger as he becomes an overnight hero after landing American Airlines Flight 1549 into the Hudson River after major engine failure, successfully saving all 155 passengers and crew members.
So Sully is an interesting film to review as it actually happened during my lifetime. The story was huge, and yet it as soon as I heard that they where making a movie out of it I quickly questioned as to why they would do that. Everyone knows how it ends, and everyone knows what happened. Although Sully has great performances by both Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart, it was nothing extraordinary. Yes it was a good movie, but it was incredibly anticlimactic as we’ve all seen the true ending in real life. Hanks does an incredible job as Sully, and I honestly couldn’t see anyone else playing his part. Even in the end you see the actual Sully and it’s kinda funny how closely the two look alike. I would love to go into depth about how amazing Hanks was in certain scenes, but when isn’t this guy doing an amazing job anyways? Even the supporting cast was incredible. Aaron Eckhart was fantastic and it was almost as if he was just playing himself.
There wasn’t much to critic about this film other than its incredibly anticlimactic ending as the film did a good job making 208 minutes of a plane crash last 96 minutes. Sure there were a couple scenes that felt a little drawn out, but a movie that can take 208 minutes of a plane crash and turn that into a biography/drama film that doesn’t suck ultimately succeeds in my book. The tone of the film was consistent and dreary, which definitely added to the tone of the film. The only issue I had visually with this film was that the CGI of the water when crashing was pretty terrible. Other scenes where we see the CGI plane look good, but the water in the crash scene just doesn’t seem on par. Also, was there even a soundtrack to this film? I couldn’t recall hearing one, and even if I did it wasn’t good enough for me to remember there being one.
Other than my minor gripes, there wasn’t much to hate or love about this film. Maybe in ten years when people forget about living through this event it might actually be a remarkable movie, but it ultimately crashes a little too short of a “Very Good” on theVade Review Bar because of it’s predictable and abrupt ending. So in the end I gave Sully a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. If it wasn’t for its fantastic cast this film would have just been a mediocre movie, but Hanks ultimately saved this film from crashing into the Hudson.
