Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart (left) in Sully.
Clint Eastwood is known for being a tough man with little patience for fools; a reputation encouraged perhaps by his famous roles as no-nonsense, brooding anti-heroes. It’s no wonder then, that Eastwood was drawn to the story of Captain Chesley Sullenburger and his emergency plane landing on the Hudson River in 2009. Sully is the latest directorial display by Eastwood, this time bringing a grey and grizzled Tom Hanks along for the ride.
The story is a perfect fit for Eastwood’s catalogue of films about brave Americans doing amazing things, and Hanks brilliantly portrays Sullenburger as the silver haired veteran murmuring his resistance to the government suits, insisting that despite what their fancy computers say, he did the right thing. It’s hard not to see a flash of Eastwood in Hank’s portrayal of Sullenburger. Despite the weariness of age in the character, the human within still shines, and Eastwood makes clear that regardless of the scowls and grumbling, there’s still a warm man underneath that hard exterior. It’s not a stretch to consider that Eastwood wants us to understand this for himself too; that his tough skin doesn’t mean he has a heart of stone.
The film presents events in a non-linear order, keeping the audience at the same pace as the investigators as they slowly discover the truth of the accident piece by piece. This directorial decision by Eastwood maintains a riveting atmosphere of tension and self-doubt throughout the whole film. Even those familiar with the incident will be doubting themselves as the investigation unfolds, mirroring the internal turmoil of Sullenburger, who grapples with his own doubts about the crash.
The fateful flight begins at about the mid-point of the film, and the tension becomes suffocating as the seat belts are fastened. There are no embellishments with the portrayal, and care is taken to show the muted panic of the passengers as they escape the sinking hulk. Waist high camera work drowns the viewer in the rising tide, as the steady flow of icy water slowly envelops the plane and laps at the knees of the escaping passengers. The impact of this emotional sequence is compounded by the usage of real footage and photos in the credits, showing just how accurate Eastwood’s portrayal of the incident is. Eastwood effortlessly weaves real dialogue from the crew in with the fiction, so much so that you’ll be surprised to find out just how much dialogue was word for word accurate.
With such accuracy in so much of the film, it’s disappointing to see Eastwood fall back on the trope of having bumbling government officials, over reliant on their whiz-bang computers, being stumped by the veteran’s intuition and gut. It feels like a lazy way of creating antagonists for the film, but it at least serves to provide tension and conflict in the retelling.
With Eastwood’s brilliant directing and a stunning portrayal of Captain Sullenburger by Hanks, Sully is a thrilling and surprisingly accurate ride, but sometimes leans too heavily tired on cinema tropes.