Dir Clint Eastwood
Written by Todd Komarnicki, Chelsey Sullenberger
Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O’Malley, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sherridan, Ann Cusack, Molly Hagan, Holt McCallanay, Chris Bauer.
On January 15th 2009, the simple flight from NY to Seattle encounters a bird strike mid lift off, and with both engines gone, Captain Chelsey ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, along with co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles (Eckhart) are forced to water land the plane in the Hudson river. When all 155 souls aboard survive, the investigation of if Sully made the right choice begins from the NTSB.
Decent enough film from the almost always brilliant Eastwood, has some very well choreographed scenes, primarily during the crash sequences. I did feel some of the ‘non primary’ performances were a little flat, and this might have been due to Eastwood’s famous ‘one and done’ filming technique.
The film is told in a non linear narrative, with many flashbacks of the event, to the investigation – and lead up to the investigation. This works well enough, as the event is seen from different perspectives (air traffic controllers, then Sully and Skiles).
The cast is good, Hanks and Eckhart are the primary two cast members. They are both solid, with Hanks giving an okay performance. It is far from his best however. Supporting cast are given little to do, with Linney as Sulley’s wife completely underused – and is housebound in every scene, she could have filmed all of her scenes in one day.
The screenplay is solid – with aviation language from the characters set in the control tower – the MVP to me goes to Patch Darragh, who plays air traffic controller Patrick Harten – who helped guide 1549 to safety. There is also some humorous moments in the screenplay – such as when Skiles would do it again…
While there is controversy over the ‘cinematic’ way that the NTSB investigated the crash, it should be noted the real NTSB were nothing like what they were portrayed on film.
There is a subtle score that underplays during the 90m runtime, that actually feels a little short, and could have been stretched out to give supporting cast more to do. With such strong performers it would have been nice to see them in more scenes.
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