Movie Review: Sully (2016)

Synopsis: On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger successfully completed a water landing on the Hudson River and saved 155 lives after a group of birds struck his plane and knocked out both engines. New York City and the world are celebrating him as a hero. However, behind the scenes, he is in danger of losing his job and everything he worked for because investigators believe he took an unnecessary risk.

Who's in it? The movie stars Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Valerie Mahaffey, Mike O'Malley and Laura Linney.


Review: I don't normally watch biographical films because they always tend to be slanted and don't usually give the full story. However, my wife wanted to see this movie and, since I got it as a free rental with my pizza order on Friday, I picked it up. We finally got around to watching it last night and it ended up being much better than I expected.

Since it was a relatively recent event, we both remembered the Hudson River crash landing and the media celebration that happened shortly afterwards. This movie does an excellent job reminding us about that event while, at the same time, shows what was happening behind the scenes.

One thing I found I liked about this movie was the way it kept things from being cut and dry. Sully (Hanks) was convinced he made the right decision. But, as the evidence began to be gathered and seemed to show he could have safely made it to an airport, it did raise some questions about whether or not he made a mistake and was fortunate he didn't kill everyone on board the plane.

I also liked how, even though the movie is primarily about Sully, it still took the time to recognize everyone else who was involved with the incident, including his co-pilot (Eckhart), the flight crew and the rescuers who were on the scene almost instantly. A lot of biographical films would not have done that.

My only real complaint about this movie is the way the members of the National Transportation Safety Board are portrayed as though they are villains. Perhaps, from his perspective, that may have seemed the case. But, the various members seemed to be treating the incident as though it were trying to accomplish some sort of personal vendetta against Sully. That seems unlikely and, if it really happened, then the movie failed to explain why they wanted to discredit the pilot.

Final Opinion: I wasn't really sure what to expect when we started to watch this movie. But, overall, I thought it was a decent film that we both enjoyed watching.

My Grade: A

Comments

  1. We have this movie coming too & I really wasn't sure whether to get it or not, thanks for the review

    ReplyDelete

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