Clint Eastwood ‘Sully’ Honors New York and Its Heroes
Tom Hanks rests on his laurels in Clint Eastwood’s sweet but slight retelling of the heroes involved in the miracle on the Hudson
David Bowie once said “We could be heroes, just for one day.” No one understands that adage better than Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger whose miraculous landing of a plane on the Hudson River in 2009 made headlines labeling him a hero. It’s been seven years since we heard about Sully’s exploits and Hollywood, by way of director Clint Eastwood, brings his story to the big screen with the mushy simplicity of creamed corn.
Chelsey Sullenberger pulled off the impossible, piloting his disabled jet airliner with 155 souls on-board into the Hudson river. But the “miracle on the Hudson,” despite what others claim, is questioned by the FAA who wonder if Sully could have avoided the landing altogether.
The “miracle on the Hudson” is one of the first half of the 2000s bigger moments. A careening aircraft flying through the Manhattan skyline conjures as many thoughts of 9/11 on-screen as it must have to New Yorkers on the ground in 2009. Eastwood interprets Sully’s actions as the warm boost Americans needed in a decade fraught with economic instability and terrorist fears; Laura Linney’s distressed wife character is there to remind us the economy kinda sucked in 2009. Sully’s on par with a general who’s successfully brought his troops home, as the passengers and strangers throughout the city praise him and call him a hero.
LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 08: (L-R) Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, director/producer Clint Eastwood, actor Tom Hanks, and actor Aaron Eckhart attend the screening of Warner Bros. Pictures’ ‘Sully’ at Directors Guild Of America on September 8, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
Eastwood and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki have a tall order, telling the audience things they didn’t hear throughout the few months Sully’s name was on everyone’s lips. It’s evident director and writer were aware of how average Sully’s life was leading up to the event because at a scant 96-minutes there’s more meat than filler, though the meat is minuscule. Two flashbacks pop-up with the most tenuous of connections as young Sully learns how to fly a plane and later sets himself up as a pilot of difficult aircraft during his wartime training.
There are three sides to every story: those of the individuals involved and the truth. Sully, both the character and the narrative, falls firmly into presenting the pilot’s viewpoints as the gospel truth, despite FAA claims to the contrary. What scenes take place outside the cockpit involve Sully’s attempts to prove there was no way to avoid a water landing in the river. (There are some great moments of subtle comedic humor regarding the terms “forced water landing” and “crash.” Between this and Arrival Hollywood is very interested in semantics.)
Because audiences are aware of Sully’s claim to fame, the short runtime and tidy way plot impediments are transcended gives a near sitcom-level sense of complacence. When Sully and co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) smile at each other like a pair of mustachioed good ‘ole boys, you expect laugh track accompaniment. Characters are presented as they are, and only Tom Hanks infuses his character with depth, usually through tortured looks of anguish etched onto his face like a mask.
Sully, Promotional Image, via Warner Brothers
The plane sequence, chopped up to give people a reason to stay beyond the 20-minute mark, is the film’s highlight. Sully’s sole reason for existence is this recreation and it’s effective, even if the rest of the film isn’t. Eastwood and crew give us the most authentic representation of a plane crash without putting us in the aisle seat. As someone who already imagines this scenario every time I enter an airplane cabin, the synchronized flight attendants’ speech, “Brace! Brace! Brace! Head down, stay down” left me emotionally paralyzed.
Hanks is always the professional, but there’s little differentiating his Sully from his Captain Richard Phillips; he looks concerned a lot. He’s calm and stoic during the water landing sequence, but his Oscar potential is limited to playing a figure best known as a Jeopardy answer.
Aaron Eckhart doesn’t have much of a character to provide Hanks any counterbalance. He’s Sully’s compatriot and yes-man. Mike O’Malley and Anna Gunn are the two FAA representatives with lines, with O’Malley receiving the majority. Laura Linney lives up to Amy Schumer’s “Concerned Wife on the Phone” to a T, bound to her phone and never leaving her kitchen the entire time she’s on-screen. (The treatment of women and minorities here is really egregious, worthy of a whole article in itself.)
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Outside of Sully’s exploits, the script’s old-fashioned emphasis on the “human component” will resonate with anyone over-60 who can’t figure out “the Twitter.” Eastwood’s admiration for the past works towards creating a simplistic tale of modern-day heroes, but that’s all. Sully is the snack food of biopics: a quick summation of a man but one that doesn’t necessitate a second glance.