A Modern Day Real Life Hero - SULLY. Review on Sully

This movie is not about the “Miracle on the Hudson”…. You’ve googled enough about that “plane that landed on the river” somewhere in the US, right? But this movie is about leadership in acute moments. The story is nothing to write home about.  I mean what story you can possibly make of a movie that at its heart is an investigation into the said “miracle”. Did I say that? I was wrong

Of course they do show what happened in the incident and how one of the greatest and best evacuations from a landing on water has attempted successfully for the first time in history with no fatalities

But the movie actually is about the character of the person known to history now as “Sully

When the movie opens we see Cap’n “Sully” Sullenberger(Tom Hanks)  at the NTSB(National Transportation Safety Board) along with his copilot Jeff Skiles(Aaron Eckhart) addressing the enquiry commission’s tough questions on whether the water landing could have been avoided.

Their job is to be tough. To leave no pebble unturned in their quest of the truth since the aviation industry learns from each new disaster. Their hob is to check for all evidence much like an unemotional hard boiled gumshoe.

So while the rest of the nation is celebrating him as a hero, alone in his hotel room at night or some times with and facing the questions he and his copilot go though in the day though a round of investigations seemingly aimed at proving the opposite. Sully is not just another pilot with over 40 years of flying experience, he is also an NTSB investigator himself.

Yes you will get to see the incident too during the film but what keeps it going is the unknown part of Sully’s life – they days of the investigation . His poise in stress, his concern for his passengers and crew  and his ability to logically unemotionally come up with a response that proved beyond any doubt that he did what was best in the interests of the passengers is what makes the movie watchable

in the last scene, after a grueling NTSB enquiry that sought to put the blame on human error, when Scully has removed all doubt from the investigates minds that three could have been no other option than what he was forced to do, one of the examinees turns to him and says “ If we somehow were to remove the X from the equation in the whole scene the math would fail. That X is you Capt Sullenberger. The Cap’n unflinchingly says, “I disagree. If it weren’t for my co-pilot, the cabin crew and the rescue teams  this wouldn’t have happened”.

One of the finest examples of  leadership seen in recent public times

Go see it for another fine performance by Tom Hanks and some superb direction by Clint Eastwood. HE keeps you gripped to the scene with the tense interplay of action and emotion in his own inimitable style