Another film technically from 2016, but I saw it today, 9th January, at the pictures, as part of a two film marathon for my day off.
I hadn't been particularly inspired by advertisements to watch this film, and from the poster alone I didn't know what the film was about at all. I'd heard a few people talk about the film, and seen that it had good reviews, and this married with the ideal show time of 14.30pm (plenty of time in the day for a second film), enticed me to give it a watch.
When investigating which films I wanted to watch on my dreamy day off, I discovered the film was in fact based on a true story (a bonus; almost a documentary), and also 96 minutes long (a film of around one and a half hours gets extra points in my eyes, as I don't have a great attention span). I remember hearing the news that a plane had landed on the Hudson, but I never read more into it, so I was intrigued to watch and see the bigger picture. I can't believe it happened in 2009 - I thought it was a couple of years ago, not nearly 8!
I think my expectations for the film, was to hear some back story about the pilot (Sully - Tom Hanks), see him nearly crash, then land perfectly on the Hudson, and then watch the credits roll. However, the film was so much more than this, I feel naive that those were my preconceptions. To the world, landing on the Hudson was big news, the script mentioned about how for once it was good news about planes in New York, and to me, I think that's how I felt; the pilot was a hero. Looking deeper, we understand that Sully's act to land the plane on a river had further implications - implications that involve joyous things like responsibility and insurance and investigations.
There are also themes of heroism throughout the film, and the way Sully deals with it; he does not identify with being a hero, he was just doing his job. I think this really makes the audience connect with the character, and again, this was something I hadn't considered before watching the film. The second film of my marathon also looked at heroes, and what being a hero means, on a completely different level, but we'll come to that in my next review.
Another thing to touch on which made me think, was how black and white things are during an investigation. Life is generally neither black nor white, and the certainty of what is the right and wrong thing to do are hardly ever clean cut. The film illustrated the need to take humans into account, not just maths or mechanics or engineering. In this respect, the film reminded me of Deepwater Horizon, another 'based on a true story' film from 2016, and a high scorer on my infamous spreadsheet.
Overall, this film really exceeded my expectations, Hanks and Eckhart (who plays Sully's co-pilot), were both great, and the film really made me think. When a woman was stood on the wing on the plane on her phone, mid-evacuation, I did really think 'what has the world come to', but that is the reality of today's world - I'm sat in my bed on a Monday night writing a blog post after all. For the golden hour and a half time check, the true life factor, and the content of the movie, I'd give Sully an 8/10. I would go to a 8.5 if I shed a tear, but unfortunately I maintained a dry eye. That said, upon leaving the cinema, I was right in the middle of a flight path, and my heart did jump a bit when I heard an aeroplane come into land!
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