By Emilio Frenk
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Mike O´Malley, Jamey Sheridan, Anna Gunn, Holt McCallany and Laura Linney.
Rating: Excellent.
4 Time Academy Award Winning Director/Producer Clint Eastwood brings his 35th film as a director with “Sully” and as always it´s such a delight to see one of his movies in the big screen.
Based in real life events, the movie tells the story of how Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) save the lives of 155 passengers who were operated theUS Airways flight 1549 from New York Laguardia to Charlotte Douglas International Airport in January 14 of 2009 by landing the aircraft in the Hudson River in New York after a flock of geese crashed against both engines. This event will be rememberd as The Miracle of the Hudson.
The press calls Sully a hero for doing this daring stunt but eventually the Nacional Transportation Safety Board will conduct an investigation about the events claiming that the accident could have been avoided.
Sully´s career will be on the line unless he proves his point on why he had to land the aircraft in the river instead of a runaway.
In every Clint Easwood film, he portrays his characters with both inner and external conflicts and nobody does it better than him and here is no different, specially with Hank’s perfomance.
His direction is sharp and precise as well as the Script written by Todd Kowarnicki who was really smart on narrating the events of the whole movie from the point of view of Chesley Sullenburger.
Although I´m not a fan of how flashbacks are being used normally but here it makes total sense since Eastwood is taking the journey of “Sully” before the accident and after.
Eastwood can also establish the use of proper flashbacks making him one of the few directors who knows how to tell a story using this resource in a proper manner.
The performances of Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart are believable and true as well as for Laura Linney who worked previously with Eastwood in Mystic River. Both actors most likely will nail Academy Award Nominations in next year´s awards ceremony for their performances as well for Clint Eastwood in directing.
There is no doubt that Clint Eastwood is one of the most influential flimmakers of it´s generation and with Sully proves a point. Of all his 35 films he has done as a director this is the one with the shortest length but at the same time I have to say that this is considered one of his most challenging movies due to the amount of camera movements, and both visual and special effects.
I´ve always been an admirer of Clint Eastwood´s work and I put “Sully” as one of the best movies of this year due to the performances and the storytelling and this movie delivers the goods.
“Sully” is a must see movie and for Clint Eastwood fans you are not going to be dissapointed.