Details: About an hour and a half long. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Stars Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart. Released in 2016.
As I watched this movie, I could practically imagine the exact conversation that took place when they decided to finance and make this movie. It probably went something like this:
“This amazing thing has happened. Captain Sully is an American hero and he landed a plane in the Hudson River. Sully landed a plane in a city with a horrible history of airplanes. and he saved all one hundred and fifty-five passengers on board. No deaths. We can make some money off of this. We need the movie rights for this. Sully seems like a nice guy. We could probably get the rights from him and the rest of the passengers for a song and a dance. Hey, they might even appear at the end, make everyone feel good about the movie they just watched.
“So who will we get to direct? Anyone have the number for Clint Eastwood? He loves directing this American hero shit. We could probably get a discount on his fee. Now whose going to star? Well you know we got to get America’s favorite every-man, Tom Hanks. I mean he doesn’t have any range, but he’s perfect for these relatable, middle-aged white guy roles. After that shitty Walt Disney movie and Captain Philips, this seems right up Tom’s alley. Let’s just make sure we find some half decent supporting actor to help him along, maybe Aaron Eckhart since I just had a phone call with his agent yesterday. With Clint and Tom in the movie, the movie practically pays for itself. People will watch anything with those guys in it.
“As for budget, about sixty million sounds good. Most of it will go to Clint and Tom, but their the ones selling the movie so whatever. This doesn’t need to be an expensive movie. Just some interior scenes with no name actors.
“And lastly and least importantly, what’s our plot? Well we got to show the plane landing in Hudson. And yes, that whole thing happened in about a couple of minutes. Even evacuating the passengers took only twenty-four minutes. My goodness, there really isn’t a lot of conflict there or a lot of story. Ah well, I’ll go down to my local Starbucks and find some random screenwriter to stretch it out somehow. I’m sure we can get an hour and a half out of this thing.”
End imaginary quote.
In my opinion, this movie was pretty silly. It was mainly Hollywood’s attempt to monetize a pat on the back for Sully. They tried to introduce some conflict with an insurance inquiry, but that clearly fizzled out if you kept track of what happened to Sully in real life. There was a clip at the end of the actual Captain Sully and the passengers having an emotional moment. That minute of footage could probably have replaced the whole movie, but then the makers of this movie wouldn’t have been as successful milking money out of this cow.
Score: 5/10 Not a bad movie, just pointless with no real conflict. I would’ve preferred a documentary. This would probably be a good airplane movie if it wasn’t about a plane crashing.
Muse Bank 