The airplane drama Sully (2016, out now on DVD) is not a testosterone fueled action flick. That’s maybe why someone I heard, who dismissed Sully, probably wanted more western flick than dramatic. Because Sully is directed by iconic western star of the 1960’s and 70’s Clint Eastwood. However, no western this time, with Sully. Eastwood last stared in a western with Unforgiven in 1992 which he also directed.

Sully doesn’t have a horse and a hero, and a gun and a hat, but Sully is a drama about the obvious danger of emergency landings of airplanes.

Not about wimps

Sully is unsafe drama which in effect is typical Clint Eastwood, as director and actor.

It is about life and death moments of choice in the most demanding of occupations. It is about being an airplane pilot during a malfunctioning of the plane. Being a pilot is not about proving how tough one is. The thing in Sully is to know how to fly great and how to save lives.

Flight 1549

On January 15, 2009, 155 passengers of US Airways flight 1549 survived a water landing on the Hudson River, in New York, after a bird strike damaged the plane’s hulls. With the Hudson in view, landing on water was the decision the pilot made in the urgency of the moment.  Based on Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger’s book “Highest Duty”, the film portrays the emergency landing and the aftermath.

The aftermath puts the pilots—Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger (Played by Tom Hanks) and Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart)—under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) despite the pilots saving all the lives of those on board.

The pilot, who made the crucial decision to land the plane in the Hudson, is deemed a hero by the American public. New Yorkers were in need of something uplifting says the film. Instead of a tragedy, a victory is made out of a potential tragedy instead.

Tom Hanks as Sully gets under the skin of his character and makes you see what’s going on underneath Sully’s wisely white set of hair and weary looks. Saving others took a toll. This is no wimpy pilot.