Do I really have to call SPOILER ALERT when this was all over the news in 2009?
Oh well. Assume I just did.
BQB here with a review of Sully, the Clint Eastwood directed film about U.S. Airways pilot Chesley Sullenberger’s miracle landing of an airline on the Hudson River.
Stupid geese. They ruin everything. And all those years ago (seems like it was just yesterday, doesn’t it?) they flew into Sully’s engines and knocked them out.
With little time to think and a plane that was going down, Sully (Tom Hanks), with the help of co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) made a split decision to land the plane in the Hudson River.
The film takes us through the event from a number of perspectives – office workers who see the low flying plane and fear it is another 9/11, illustrating the toll on the American psyche that attack has taken, the frightened passengers, the flight attendants who keep their cool and lead the passengers through what they need to do, the rescue workers who respond to the scene in time to save the passengers from freezing to death in the bitter January cold.
It was a heck of a story when it happened. There have been many plane crashes in history, though none that I can think of where everyone survived. Sully was the toast of the town immediately thereafter, hailed as a hero and brought on as a guest on multiple talk shows and news programs.
But what we didn’t realize is that behind the scenes the ole Sullymeister was being railroaded big time. Thus, the brunt of the movie focuses on NTSB investigators (boo! gubmint bureaucrats! boo!) attempting to string Sully up with computer simulations indicating that it would have been possible for Sully to have landed the plane at LaGuardia or in New Jersey.
With flashbacks to his youth as a crop-duster and military pilot interspersed throughout, Sully fights to preserve his good name, his reputation, his wings, his pension, and ultimately to prove that he wasn’t flying some video game, this was the real deal and he did what he needed to do to save the day.
One thing that struck me as I watched was just how densely populated New York City is, how tall the buildings are, combined with giant planes flying overhead constantly, one wonders how there aren’t more crashes and ultimately, you walk away with a greater appreciation for pilots like Sully who move these giant metal beasts through the sky over populated areas everyday.
And that’s the rub. Sully didn’t just save his passengers, but also the people in the city his plane would have crashed into.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 