You’ve started to accept heroism at the movies means men in tights yielding superpowers. Casting away the cape and cowl, Tom Hanks proves that his hero portrayal is still a chiseled face and faded grays — capping his role of Captain Chesley Sullenberger. A well-pieced cast and a strong directorial team bring the incredible tale of Sullenberger and his crew in the pragmatic and suspenseful “Sully.”

Clint Eastwood’s recent project “Sully” tells the story of US Airways Flight 1549 from New York to Charlotte, a flight that famously — and quite incredibly — landed safely on the Hudson River. The emergency landing took place after the plane struck a flock of geese, and it successfully salvaging all 155 souls on board.

The narrative focuses almost entirely on the flight’s captain, Hanks, detailing his relatively pedestrian life that preceded, and stardom that succeeded Flight 1549. Throughout, Hanks insists that he was “only doing his job,” while the world around him builds him up as a hero.

The narrative jumps around to offer multiple perspectives on the near tragedy, as passengers, pilots, crew and family members are highlighted too. “Sully” details the National Transportation Safety Board investigation post-crash, questioning Sullenberger and his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles — portrayed by Aaron Eckhart — on their intentions and decisions during the flight.

As Hanks’ character battles with these questions personally, he constantly contemplates what might have happened, or what he could have done differently, and you can really feel his internal struggle. Eastwood includes dream sequences, flashbacks, and hallucinations to accentuate Sully’s estrangement from his new lifestyle, and while all these sequences are at times jarring, the abrasiveness serves well to the terrifying reality of a plane crash.

There’s some nervous humor sprinkled throughout “Sully” to flesh out the human element. Sully is pretty tense, but while Hanks hardly cracks a smile, Eckhart finds a few cracks to slide in a few punch lines. The mustachioed co-pilot is at times remarkably witty, and might have even stolen a few scenes.

Ultimately, Eastwood found some chemistry with this cast to illustrate the humanity behind the everyday actions of the working man, finding poetry in the seemingly mundane and in the remarkably miraculous.

Hanks is wonderfully subtle in his role as Sullenberger. We’ve kind of gotten used to Hanks being “the guy,” starring as big name people with big time personalities. This was not that role. While Sullenberger was not necessarily a quiet man, he was by no means loud. He was pretty much a regular old man, six years from his pension, hoping to be home in time for supper.

You can feel Hanks’ exhaustion as he aches to return to normalcy. In one of the best scenes of the film, Hanks says to Eckhart, “I’ve been doing this for 42 years. I’ve delivered millions of people over millions of miles of the world over, and I’m going to be remembered for 208 seconds.” His life’s work summarized in just over 3 minutes. Perhaps one catastrophe was avoided, but the real tragedy was in the loss of Sullenberger’s identity amidst the flood of press and attention.

Sully may have been the feel-good movie of the year. Its hour and a half run time was just right, and to be completely honest I kind of cried at one point. This movie rocked. When you catch this one, stick around for the end credits, there’s a really cool picture collage put to music. Tight.

Published on September 11, 2016 at 6:56 pm