Sully. (15.)
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan and Mike O'Malley. 96 mins.
The Miracle on the Hudson, when pilot Chesley Sullenberger (Hanks) safely landed a stricken passenger plane on the New York river without any loss of life or even serious injury, is a definitely great true story, but it doesn't automatically suggest a great tue story that has a movie in it. Plane takes off - freak and unprecedented bird strike immediately knocks out both his engines - lands on the water - all get rescued - grateful survivors say Cheers Sully, we'd all be dead if not for you – the end. The whole thing took just over ten minutes. Eastwood though saw a movie in it, a very distinctive and unique movie – a 9/11 revenge weepie.
It's a story about a plane crashing in New York that has a happy ending, and the parallels are pushed hard. So, we get are nightmare sequences where Sully visualises crashing into the New York skyline; after the crash landing the emergency services are shown swinging efficiently into action and working with exemplary coordination to complete the miracle.
The script switches time frames effectively, going back and forward from recreations of the fateful day in January 2009, to Sully's life before and after. There is press intrusion and a hostile investigation into his actions by The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB.) Instead of seeming stretched, it makes for a tight, compact hour and a half.
This may all sound quite manipulative, and it is, but Eastwood is not a man to ever let you see the strings or feel the prods. If he were a sheep dog you'd be in that pen instantly and would swear that it was completely your own decision. Combine that with a greyed up Hanks playing discrete integrity in an inherently moving tale of survival done without histrionics and it makes for an irresistible package. Who isn't moved by a story of people not dying in a plane crash.
With his calmness, his diffidence towards acclaim and his rather stiff upper lip reluctance to talk about, Sully makes for an odd American hero. (Surely he should be high fiving, making wisecracks and grinning insufferably. Or, killing lots of people.) In the States the film, which was released there in September, has already been a sizeable hit. In the months before the election this tale of a decent man doing his job heroically and being rewarded with weaselly men (and women) in suits trying to scapegoat him as to blame because they were worried about the insurance pay out, chimed with, or even fostered, the grassroots fervour for swamp draining and lashing out at the establishment. This despite criticism that film's presentation of the NTSB board as villains was unfair and a twisting of the truth, criticisms even the real life Sullenberger agreed with.
Directed by Clint Eastwood.
Starring Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan and Mike O'Malley. 96 mins.
The Miracle on the Hudson, when pilot Chesley Sullenberger (Hanks) safely landed a stricken passenger plane on the New York river without any loss of life or even serious injury, is a definitely great true story, but it doesn't automatically suggest a great tue story that has a movie in it. Plane takes off - freak and unprecedented bird strike immediately knocks out both his engines - lands on the water - all get rescued - grateful survivors say Cheers Sully, we'd all be dead if not for you – the end. The whole thing took just over ten minutes. Eastwood though saw a movie in it, a very distinctive and unique movie – a 9/11 revenge weepie.
It's a story about a plane crashing in New York that has a happy ending, and the parallels are pushed hard. So, we get are nightmare sequences where Sully visualises crashing into the New York skyline; after the crash landing the emergency services are shown swinging efficiently into action and working with exemplary coordination to complete the miracle.
The script switches time frames effectively, going back and forward from recreations of the fateful day in January 2009, to Sully's life before and after. There is press intrusion and a hostile investigation into his actions by The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB.) Instead of seeming stretched, it makes for a tight, compact hour and a half.
This may all sound quite manipulative, and it is, but Eastwood is not a man to ever let you see the strings or feel the prods. If he were a sheep dog you'd be in that pen instantly and would swear that it was completely your own decision. Combine that with a greyed up Hanks playing discrete integrity in an inherently moving tale of survival done without histrionics and it makes for an irresistible package. Who isn't moved by a story of people not dying in a plane crash.
With his calmness, his diffidence towards acclaim and his rather stiff upper lip reluctance to talk about, Sully makes for an odd American hero. (Surely he should be high fiving, making wisecracks and grinning insufferably. Or, killing lots of people.) In the States the film, which was released there in September, has already been a sizeable hit. In the months before the election this tale of a decent man doing his job heroically and being rewarded with weaselly men (and women) in suits trying to scapegoat him as to blame because they were worried about the insurance pay out, chimed with, or even fostered, the grassroots fervour for swamp draining and lashing out at the establishment. This despite criticism that film's presentation of the NTSB board as villains was unfair and a twisting of the truth, criticisms even the real life Sullenberger agreed with.
