Clint Eastwood teams up with Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart to bring an amazing event to the big screen with "Sully," directed by Eastwood.
On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenberger is faced with the toughest challenge he has ever had to face in his 40-year career as a pilot. Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) tries to find a way to safely land the plane US Airways Fight 1549 after an army of birds get sucked into the plane's engines and cause them to shut down.
After struggling to get the plane back to the airport, Sully decides to land in the New York Hudson. Amazingly, after the terrifying turn of events, the landing is successful and everyone survives. Shortly after the story hits the news, Sully is praised as a hero to everyone around the world.
During his time of fame, Sully experiences a lot of negative side effects from the event. Other than the swarm of paparazzi and journalists following him and his family around, Sully starts to hallucinate about 9/11 and has flashbacks to his days as a young pilot with the world in his hands and nothing to worry about. Besides the praise, a lot of negativity from the event begins appearing. Rumors about the event that threaten to put Sully's future in jeopardy start swirling around, which causes a large investigation to be launched regarding the incident.
Tom Hanks portrayed national hero Capt. Chesley Sullenberger perfectly. He showed the two most important sides of Sully that every audience member wanted to see. He gave us the calm and composed Sully that saved 155+ people while also showing us how traumatized Sully was after the incident. It is 2016 and Tom Hanks is still dominating on the big screen. He comes out with a movie every year that dominates the box office (Sully: $95 million) and there is simply one reason for that -- we want to see Tom Hanks on that giant screen.
Every pilot needs a partner, and Tom Hanks had Aaron Eckhart, who portrayed Jeff Skiles. Surprisingly, he stole the show. He was a great addition to the already talented cast. Every moment he was on screen, my attention was 100% on him. He brought a bit of comedy to a very dark story, and it seemed to balance the tone pretty well. The chemistry between him and Tom Hanks was great and made this movie more interesting than it already was. This movie is another piece of evidence that Aaron Eckhart can use to prove that he is one of the most talented men in Hollywood.
Another great casting choice was Mike O'Malley who portrayed Charles Porter, one of the people who investigated the landing. Mike O'Malley brought an arrogant vibe to the humble and calming presence of Tom Hanks, and the chemistry between the two was interesting. It definitely worked, but it was interesting to see it all play out. I will admit that I did not recognize Mike O'Malley from any movie that I've seen before, but after this performance, I will not be forgetting him soon.
My favorite aspect of the movie was the cinematography. The movie looked absolutely gorgeous. Tom Stern did a tremendous job in filming the movie, and the CGI was great for a fairly low-budget movie.
The biggest downfall for this movie was the direction it took. I am a big fan of Clint Eastwood, and it pains me to say that this movie was very poorly directed. The flashback scenes were very confusing at times and felt very choppy when they occurred. There were many times during the movie where I got frustrated because I could not understand what was happening. Another major downfall was how slowly the movie started off. The opening was intense but for the next forty minutes that came after that, the movie slowed down and therefore felt longer than its running time of an hour and 36min.
All in all, I recommend the movie because it tells the important and heroic story of Captain Sully. I walked away from this movie with high praise for Mr. Sullenberger and Mr. Skiles, but also towards the amazing two-man team of Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart. Although this movie was a good time, I can't help but think about how choppy it was at times, and no matter how great the acting is in a movie, you need good direction This movie did not have that.
Verdict: 6.8/10
