Drama sucked out of Sully

Aaron Eckhart and Tom Hanks in Sully. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

Sully shows how easy it can be to botch the story of a man saving 155 lives after crashing an airplane into the Hudson River. It manages to do so despite having an incredible real-life story to work from, a very capable director in Clint Eastwood, and professional nice guy Tom Hanks playing the eponymous pilot, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. Yet the film still boggles up a great story, exchanging the interesting tidbits of self doubt and crisis for a celebration of one man and creating a rather one-note and flat piece of cinema.

It's hard to pin down what Eastwood and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki are trying to convey with Sully. The film has a habit of bouncing wantonly between points and changing narrative directions and tone for reasons known to the two men responsible for this film and no one else. It's quite odd, really, how the film opens with Sullenberger expressing self doubts about his actions and experiencing severe PTSD, only to drop them when the need apparently arises to honor the man. The final sequence is an outpouring of adoration for the man in the film's fictionalized universe and in reality via a short promo where Sullenberger literally stands behind an American flag boldly. In between the praises for Sullenberger is one of the worst final scenes in recent memory, a final moment that offers no catharsis or introspection or proper closure to a hypothetically emotional narrative. That leaves the man himself left out of the equation to bow to the collective cheers and applause from audiences. Perhaps the poor quality of the film itself is for the man's benefit; people cheering at the end credits are probably focused more on his incredible act of aviation brilliance than the abstract concept of a film that replicated it.

To be fair, the man has earned all of the accolades and praise he receives for that one feat of impossibility, as well as the right to have Hanks play him on screen. At this point in his long and terrific career, Hanks seems to have a fetish for portraying men of high moral values (or at least the perception of said values) who serve as shining beacons through the morass of the human soul. This isn't Hanks' finest performance – he is getting a little too close to self parody – but he offers the kind of performance one should expect from him, albeit not at the Hanksian level he reached last year in Bridge of Spies. That the people around him – a co-pilot played by Aaron Eckhart, the Great Laura Linney (tragically trapped on the other end of several phone calls), various union representatives – are designed more as cheerleaders than actual people doubles down on the need for an exceptional lead performance. Their main purpose is to offer comfort to Sullenberger from the external figures the film portrays as trying to “get” Sullenberger. Eastwood and Komarnicki almost make the characters of the NTSB panel investigating the crash (led by Mike O'Malley, Anna Gunn and Jamey Sheridan) mustache-twirling villains hell-bent on outing Sullenberger as a poor pilot. Making a government board a villain is a rather lazy plot point; having them almost immediately join the sides of angels at the end adds an extra level of screenwriting sloth.

Sully could be all about Sully if Eastwood and Komarnicki had centered it on the character and perhaps mentioned the crash without showing it on screen, and it appeared for a while they might indeed skip over the incident. The idea of not showing the crash into the Hudson is intriguing, allowing for a heavier focus on the central figure and letting the nightmares the man has about what happened serve as a reminder for the worst case scenario. Instead, Sully builds up to the crash (actually showing it twice from different, asinine perspectives), establishing the happy ending while reducing the fear evoked during the crash. Good filmmakers can wring drama out of events in which the audience knows the ending (The Walk does this brilliantly); taking so long to get there only decreases the tension. That Eastwood and Komarnicki do it once again exacerbates the initial problem and Sully’s most notable flaw; it’s tough to succeed as a drama when the dramatic moments lack intensity.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 96 minutes

Genre: Drama
 

Ask Away

Target audience: People who enjoy watching Tom Hanks embody human decency.

Take the whole family?: The crash sequences will get a little intense for kids, so keep within a year or so of the PG-13 rating.

Theater or Netflix?: Home rental is better, but don't pay for the IMAX experience if you do go out.

Oscar Odds?: It'd be a problem if this film earned a Best Picture nomination or anything related to the screenplay and directing. Depending on how the rest of the year shakes out, Tom Hanks might be the best best (and possibly a deserving candidate) for an individual nomination, and it could get a few technical nods to boot.

Watch this instead?: The gold standard for this type of film remains the unimpeachable United 93. Despite the collective knowledge of the fate of the eponymous flight, director Paul Greengrass teases the possibility of a happy ending, keeping the audience tethered to the action.