Older readers who grew up watching Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns or the ‘Dirty Harry’ series will never have believed that the quintessential action hero would go on to direct such masterpieces like ‘Unforgiven’, ‘Million Dollar Baby’ or ‘Mystic River’ winning two Academy Awards among many others. Here he comes again with the masterfully crafted ‘Sully’ with the magnificently talented Tom Hanks in the title role which could well earn both of them their third Oscars.
On January 15th 2009, US Airways Flight number 1549, within 208 seconds from take off from the La Gaurdia Airport gets hit by birds. With both the engines failing Captain Chesley Sully Sullenberg, took an important decision to land on the Hudson River rather than returning to the base which resulted in all the 155 passengers on board escaping with negligible or minor injuries. An enquiry is set up with computer simulations suggesting that Sully could have taken the flight back or to another airport and landed safely. Now the newborn Hero is also in danger of losing his all if proven that his decision may have been wrong. Adapted from Sullenberg’s book “Highest Duty”, Clint Eastwood has brought to life this true story of real life heroism using clever story telling ploys to make it an extremely gratifying movie viewing experience.
Tom Hanks handles the role with delightful simplicity that the original character demanded and brings every emotion to the fore with the most subtle of expressions. In the beginning of the film during his nightmares of crashing the plane into a high rise building and when he is overwhelmed by the media and public attention that he is getting Hanks makes ‘Sully’ a hero you immediately root for. The scene when he searches frantically inside the plane to make sure nobody is left behind before being the last man to get off and the way he handles the public trial in the climax even refusing to take full credit for saving so many lives raises goosebumps. Aaron Ekhart as Sully’s copilot Jeff Skiles who stands by him during thick and thin makes the role his own. Laura Linney as Sully’s wife Lorraine has nailed the emotions of the everyday wife and mother whose concerns are about how the incident would affect the family especially financially as her husband could well lose his job. The other cast are uniformly good with special mention due to the actor playing the flight tracker who breaks down when the flight goes down as he is in contact.
Tom Stern’s cinematography along with the unobtrusive music score of Christian Jacob and the clean cuts from Blu Murray have worked in tandem without a blemish. The original footage shown in the end of the film proves how much the production design of James J Murakami has come close to reality. Screenwriter Todd Komarnick deserves praise for adapting the book to perfection to the screen. Clint Eastwood has chosen to show us a real hero through simplicity and without any frills emphasizing on the human spirit over technology. The ploy used by him to show only fragments of the thrilling incident at regular intervals and then cleverly revealing the full incident during the trail works big time.
Some may complain about the other characters being underdeveloped or the stretching of the screen time. But isn’t it better this way as the 155 onboard can be anyone but importantly we feel elation that they are all saved and isnt all those mindless superhero and graphic assault movies over stretched?
Verdict : Overall as Hanks tells Eckhart in the end that they have done their job well so has everyone in this gem.
