You wouldn’t be alone if you thought that Sully was in the same ballpark, story wise, as 2012’s “Flight,” and while this film is based on a true story and the previous was fictional, the similarities are there. Unfortunately, “Flight” is the better film, but that’s not to say Sully is a bad one. It’s merely flawed.
The first major issue is that the film was marketed wrong. The trailers and posters promise the investigation into ‘what really happened’ and the ‘untold story’ of the Miracle on the Hudson, but the truth is, only about a quarter of the film focuses on the investigation, while the rest of the film is a recreation of the crash.
The film’s writing and pacing are also an issue. Many moments are heavily steeped in thick melodrama as Captain Chesley Sullenberger, played excellently by Tom Hanks (“Forrest Gump,” “Toy Story”), walks down the New York streets or sits at a bar, having praise drunkenly yelled at him by bar going patrons. Many moments of the film feel lifted straight out of a Lifetime original movie. The moments aren’t acted poorly, as previously stated Hanks is by far the best part of the entire film, and the entire supporting cast is excellent, but it’s the writing that brings the film down.
There are many moments of forced one-liners or moments of humor, and they don’t hit like they should. The bartender in one scene says that they named a drink after him, and then tells Sully that it’s “a shot of Grey Goose, and some water.” And proceeds to laugh, along with the patrons, as Sully sits, uneasily smiling.
The moment initially sounds like it’s to make us feel for his uncomfortableness in the public’s eye, but it is played like a joke. Ditto goes for a scene where Sully’s co-pilot discusses how impressive of a “bullshitter” Sully is. These moments seemed lifted out of completely other films, as they don’t flow with the momentum of the rest of the film.
At one point we are taken completely out of the aftermath storyline to an almost forty-five-minute-long recreation of the crash. Other, smaller characters are introduced, but they simply don’t need to be there and they feel phoned in to pad the film’s runtime. However, when the film focuses on this recreation, it is truly at its best.
The tension is ripe, and you feel for Sully. Even after the passengers and crew are safe, he continues to look over his shoulder and the camera lingers on the plane with him. He knows that he could have very easily missed someone or something, and the audience is right there with him. The film isn’t bad, it simply has a multitude of pacing issues, a bunch of scenes with conflicting tones, and some scenes and characters that don’t need to be in the film. Having Sully’s wife in the movie is a clear necessity, but she is given some of the worst dialogue, and Laura Linney (“The Big C,” “The Truman Show”) is clearly phoning it in.
If some of the fat and excess characters were cut from the movie, and if the recreation of the crash was extended to the full film, Sully could have been much more enjoyable. The film is carried by a talented and skilled cast, including Hanks at his prime, and Aaron Eckhart (“Thank you for Smoking,” “The Dark Knight”) keeping up with Hanks’s skill surprisingly well, and a truly heart racing recreation of the 1549’s crash, but it is brought down by some poor editing and writing, a myriad of unnecessary characters, and an overuse of melodrama leading to a film that isn’t bad, but it isn’t great. It’s simply okay. 3.5/5