At one point during Clint Eastwood’s intelligent and splendidly uplifting true-life drama, a character muses on the fact that: “It’s been a while since New York has had news this good – especially with an airplane in it.”
The antidote to the events of 9/11 certainly gave added reason to be cheerful when a disabled passenger plane was successfully ditched on the Hudson River in January 2009.
Flight 1549 had taken off from LaGuardia Airport en route for North Carolina, when geese flew into both engines, forcing them to fail. Without power, the pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger performed a flawless, and entirely unlikely landing on the river. All 155 passengers and crew survived. And the word most on people’s lips was “miracle”.
The film stars Tom Hanks as Sully, America’s favourite Everyman playing a reluctant hero – a pilot of steely calm in the cockpit, who panics at the very thought of being the centre of attention. With Eastwood on his best, most characteristic form – infusing his storytelling with minimal fuss and quiet integrity – it’s a winning combination.
Eastwood’s approach is particularly interesting for its focus. While the scenes of the plane’s extraordinary decent are filmed with jaw-dropping realism, the emphasis is not on the action, but the immediate investigation into the incident. And the three intimidating federal inspectors have one notable question: rather than the near-impossible task of landing on water, could the
pilot have simply returned to
the airport?
This lends a well-known incident, with its happy conclusion, a tension it may otherwise have lacked, as well as added psychological depth. Sully has recurring nightmares, in which his plane ploughs horrendously into city skyscrapers. With the media calling him a hero but the investigators pouring over data, this very confident man is forced to wonder himself whether he made the right decision – or got away with the wrong one.
Eastwood moves back and forth in time: in the aftermath, Sully and his steadfast co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) hide from the media frenzy in a Manhattan hotel, in between bouts of adulation and scrutiny; before the flight, there is deliberate banality – late passenger arrivals, Sully chatting to airport staff, those safety demonstrations that we all too often ignore; further back again, a few seminal moments in Sully’s development as a pilot.
Throughout, the director adopts a procedural tone, which serves to highlight our appreciation of professionals at work – whether it’s Hanks and Eckhart investing their cockpit checks with terrific authenticity, or scenes involving the air traffic controllers, and the coastguard and others who will so speedily pluck the passengers off the slowly sinking plane.
With white hair and moustache, Hanks is a good likeness for his character. The look seems in keeping with the gravitas and even dourness of a man who takes his job incredibly seriously and is affronted that anyone would doubt him. It’s a restrained, effective performance, nicely balanced by Eckhart’s, which offers the sort of twinkle-eyed lightness we’d usually expect from the star.
The pair exude a winning rapport, not least when defending themselves against the semantic insinuations of the investigators, the pilots having to insist on the “forced water landing”, not “crash”, and on their settling on, not in the Hudson.
As Sully’s wife, endlessly voicing concern on the other end of a phone, Laura Linney doesn’t get much of an opportunity to show her calibre. But there’s fun to be had in guessing which of the real-life emergency workers are playing themselves.
ALSO RELEASED
Chi-Raq (15)
The latest “Spike Lee Joint” is typically ambitious, transposing the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, in which women go on a sex strike to persuade their men to end the Peloponnesian War, to Chicago’s violent South Side. The cast speak in verse, as Lee addresses such incendiary topics as police brutality and gang violence.
Moana (U)
Disney animation has a sea-faring theme, as a feisty Polynesian princess defies her father’s ban on leaving their island to set sail on a mission to save her people. Vibrant animation, stirring songs (beautifully sang by Auli’i Cravalho) and Dwayne Johnson offering comic value as a narcissistic demi-god.
Bleed for This (15)
Miles Teller, so impressive as the obsessive drummer in Whiplash, again embodies crazed perseverance as the real-life boxer Vinny Pazienza, who refused to retire after a car accident left him severely injured – despite the risk that another blow in the ring could break his neck. Aaron Eckhart gives his second performance of the week, as Pazienza’s trainer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here