Sully (2016)

Clint Eastwood’s directed fourteen films since he turned 70 in 2000, and while he may be better known to audiences as no-nonsense detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan or the grimly determined Man With No Name, he’s cultivating a reputation as a no-nonsense director, as well. Sully is one such exemplar of a tight and effective film with little patience for gaudy thrills or big-budget exploits; instead, the film wisely centers on a confident performance and its director’s admiration for the human dimension of heroism.

Sully is the true story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberg (played by Tom Hanks), who became an international celebrity after successfully landing U.S. Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January 2009. The film explores the snap decisions made by the captain and the subsequent investigation following the water landing. From behind a tremendous mustache, Aaron Eckhart co-stars as Sully’s stalwart first officer Jeff Skiles.

At a little more than ninety minutes, Sully is an impressively tight biopic with an effective grasp on the emotions it wants its audience to have. Even though we know the true story and despite the film’s opening moments confirming the safe landing of US 1549, Eastwood manages a compelling amount of tension in the flashback sequences of the events in the cockpit. In a way, Sully reminds me of the more successful parts of Flight, in which Denzel Washington found himself the captain of a similarly troubled flight.

Of course, Flight succeeded on the shoulders of Denzel’s performance, and Sully lives up to the legend in Tom Hanks’s restrained, subtle turn as Sully. Hanks puts his everyman charm to good use in Sully, allowing us to see more easily the toll that such immediate celebrity takes on an average, good-natured human being. Hanks doesn’t have to tell us he’s shaken or weary or confident in his command decisions; he can do it all with a frown or a turn of his head or the certainty in his voice.

But Sully doesn’t verge as hagiographic as we might expect, reaffirming the decisions made by the captain but without overblowing his legend. Instead, Eastwood spends a surprising amount of time on the heroics of those around Sully – Skiles, the flight deck crew, the police, fire, and ferry workers who got the passengers out of the water. “It only took 24 minutes,” the film reminds us, for New York’s finest to rally together. And for a film that plays the numbers game, so often reminding us that Sully’s entire flight lasted 208 seconds, Eastwood is equally (if not more) invested in the way that US 1549 was an occasion for wider heroism.

As much of a piece with Flight as it is with Eastwood’s last, American Sniper, Sully is a portrait of Eastwood’s vision of heroism – patriotic, part of a community, willing and able to make hard decisions and to live with them. It’s a concise portrait from two master craftsmen, both affective and effective, and it shows that whatever directorial touch he’s got, Eastwood hasn’t lost it.

Sully is rated PG-13 for “some peril and brief strong language.” Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Todd Komarinicki. Based on the book Highest Duty by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow. Starring Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, and Laura Linney.