Sully (2016)

Adrenaline pumping, knuckles whitening, eyes glued to the screen, tears welling (mine, anyway), we experienced powerful reenactments of the water landing of a commercial plane on the Hudson, which really happened in 2009. Tom Hanks is wonderful as the skilled yet humble veteran pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (last blogged in A Hologram for the King). Disclosure: every time I saw this trailer, even watching it again now, I get choked up--partly because we fly so much and I can see myself and my loved ones on that plane, and mostly tears of joy because we know it had a happy ending. Oh, come on, if that's a spoiler you really need to get out more.

Hanks is joined by Aaron Eckhart (most recently in The Rum Diary) and Laura Linney (after I wrote about her in Hyde Park on Hudson, she starred in 40 well-done episodes of The Big C on Showtime) as his co-pilot and wife, as well as a huge cast of supporting actors under the direction of Clint Eastwood (last in these pages for American Sniper). Jack and I do not agree with his politics, but he's a fine filmmaker for the most part, and definitely here.

Todd Komarnicki adapted the memoir by Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow into this, his third produced screenplay. It's a little corny at times, but it works.

We're really glad we saw it last week in IMAX (the huge screen) to fully appreciate the amazing photography. Cinematographer Tom Stern (Oscar-nominated for Changeling) works with Eastwood often, and Aerial Director of Photography Hans Bjerno has 200 credits, including Titanic (1997), Con Air (1997), The Italian Job (2003), The Aviator (2004), The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Flight, Interstellar, Tomorrowland, Spectre, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, just to name a few. And then the huge special effects crew surely has much to do with it, too.

We laughed at all the Marriott hotel product placement. Apparently the real survivors were brought to a Marriott. But Stern's/Eastwood's camera lingers lovingly on quite a few establishing shots of Marriott hotels, at least five, by the count of this reviewer, who didn't think much of the movie. I do like his headline that Sully is Flight without the cocaine. Airplane rescue movies are exhilarating, and this one joins my other two favorites: Flight and Superman Returns (2006), where, in the opening sequence, our superhero carries a disabled passenger jet down gently into a baseball game to the cheering of fans.

Eastwood loves jazz, and for this soundtrack he chose jazz pianist Christian Jacobs (his website here) and Jacobs' frequent collaborators The Tierney Sutton Band (click the second tab on the above page). The music is good, and not all that jazzy. Only one track is available now, as the soundtrack, including an original song by Eastwood, is scheduled for a September 30 release. And here's an article with a a few paragraphs about this score.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 80% and audiences at 89 enjoyed this as much as we did. Best on the big screen unless it'll be too intense for you. Stay for the news footage during the credits.