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 in the New York river without any loss of life or even serious injury, is a great true story, but I couldn't see 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. Eastwood though saw in that something unique – a 9/11 revenge weepie.
It's a plane crashing in New York story that has a happy ending and the parallels are pushed hard. There are nightmare sequences where Sully visualises crashing into the New York skyline; after the crash landing the emergency services swing efficiently into action and work 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 afterward, with its 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. Hell, 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 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, seemed to chime with, or even foster, the nation's grassroots fervour for swamp draining and lashing out at the establishment. This despite criticism that film's presentation feeling that the portrayal 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 in the New York river without any loss of life or even serious injury, is a great true story, but I couldn't see 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. Eastwood though saw in that something unique – a 9/11 revenge weepie.
It's a plane crashing in New York story that has a happy ending and the parallels are pushed hard. There are nightmare sequences where Sully visualises crashing into the New York skyline; after the crash landing the emergency services swing efficiently into action and work 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 afterward, with its 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. Hell, 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 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, seemed to chime with, or even foster, the nation's grassroots fervour for swamp draining and lashing out at the establishment. This despite criticism that film's presentation feeling that the portrayal of the NTSB board as villains was unfair and a twisting of the truth, criticisms even the real life Sullenberger agreed with.
