Monday, November 28, 2016

One of the biggest challenges for Hollywood these days is the lack of stories. Most of the time movies are made based on TV shows, recycle old films, franchise and now the most common subject is true events that just happen pretty recent. I have a big problem when Hollywood make this kind of movies, specially because the stories are hard to develop may be some events needs to breathe for years, it also needs research to find how the events evolves, which help to understand the reason and consequences. Several films have attempted to do that. Snowden, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Deepwater Horizon and Rosewater. Probably United 93 was consider by critics a success portraying the events of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

A new film about a true life event is "Sully" director Clint Eastwood, decided to continue making another biographical story about an American heroe. Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) is the pilot of flight US Airways 1594, which departing from La Guardia airport strike a group of Canadian geese, forcing them to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River, this events happened on January 15 2009.

Clint Eastwood play with the order of the story, making sure that the audience feel the personal struggle of Capt. "Sully" meeting the National Transportation Safety Board, their accusations about his wrongful decisions in during the emergency landing and his past as a pilot. The film goes back in forth introducing several key characters into the story, bringing situations that apparently will help to define them

Tom Hanks do a marvelous job as Capt. Chesley "Sully" as well Aaron Eckhart as Jeffrey Skiles. The problem with the film is the lack of development. Eastwood presents the passengers, the flight attendant hoping that the audience connect with them, it never happen, even Laura Linney playing Sully's wife vanished as a character. To me "Sully" is just a collection of vignettes in the events of "The Miracle in the Hudson" the main way to connecting them back is with Sully's visions or flashbacks. I don't feel the click, trying to make it a powerful drama.

It's been 7 years since the miracle in the hudson happen and for some people there is no sense of mystery, but in this movie you see a troubling person who was an instant hero in the right time and the right moment. Sully as a human being is beyond that, is a father, a husband, a friend and a great professional. Unfortunately I don't see that in this movie, the film spent more time questioning him rather than honoring the right way. At the end of the day, is a director point of view.


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