"Sully" is the newest entry for director Clint Eastwood, starring Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart. "Sully" explores the events from January of 2009 where Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger heroically landed US Airways flight 1549 safely in the Hudson River after a dual engine failure, and explores the investigation of the crash. Tom Hanks may be my favorite actor of all time, so I'm always down for a Tom Hanks movie. Clint Eastwood can be a little hit or miss as a director, but I absolutely loved "American Sniper", so I was really hoping that he could bring some of that magic to "Sully". Add all that and a pretty good couple of trailers, and my hype for this movie was pretty high. I gotta say... this movie delivered for me.
First, I have to give a shoutout to Aaron Eckhart. Everybody is going to be talking about how good Hanks was in the movie (as they should), but Eckhart really did do a very good job in this movie, complimenting Hanks very well. He was pretty funny, and I really bought that his character would act the way he did after such an event. Then, there's Tom Hanks. What can I say that hasn't already been said about him? The guy is one of the best to ever act. While I don't necessarily think this is going to be one of his more legendary roles, I think he was yet again great in this movie. In a business that seems to be full of "Over-acters", Tom approaches this role with a whole lot of subtelty, and pulls it off very well. It's always hard to say at this point in the year, but given his name recognition and his performance in the movie, it isn't to hard to see him being nominated for an Oscar for his "Sully".
The area that this movie could have improved upon is hard to define, but yet again blatantly obvious. The movie is structured so it starts with the crash having already happened, and moving from there, we see the crash in flashbacks throughout the movie. The problem I had was I think at some point the film was really grasping at straws to keep the investigation interesting. All the scenes were well acted, and it was interesting, but it felt like they kind of ran out of things to talk about for a while until the hearing that ends the movie. With that being said, the hearing at the end of the movie is awesome and makes up for it. That, along with the crash sequence, are definitely the best scenes in the movie.
Ultimately, "Sully" was a movie that had the potential to be great, and it wasn't really too disappointing. The acting was great from everybody involved, I was fairly engaged throughout the film, it's beautifully shot, and I think it is worth seeing in theatres!
Final Grade: B+
