One hundred and fifty-five: that is the number that resonates with viewers of the film “Sully”. That was the number of passengers that were on the plane and the number of survivors after the water landing in the Hudson River.
Clint Eastwood does an incredible job directing the film as well as capturing the stress, emotion, and the toll that this event took on everyone involved in US Airways Flight 1549. The movie opens during the flight when engines are already down. Eastwood shocks the audience when Sullenberger, portrayed by Tom Hanks, crashes the plane into a building and grasps them when it is all just a nightmare.
Post water landing, Sullenberger can’t sleep, imagining what could have been. I commend Eastwood for the entrance into the film because we don’t first see Sullenberger as this courageous hero, we see a vulnerable man just grateful to be alive.
Most of the United States, including political leaders, praised Captain Chesley Sullenberger and his flight crew for their performance that day. However, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) thought differently and accused Sullenberger for being able to land safely at a terminal. Most were unaware of this situation and while the public was overwhelmingly showing gratitude, Sullenberger was trying to stop his life from unraveling.
Through series of flashbacks we finally learned the story of US Airways Flight 1549 and what took place. We went through Sullenberger doubting all of the decisions he made that day till he finally validated all of the decisions.
It is not until the public hearing with the NTSB that we finally depict Chesley Sullenberger as the true and real hero he is. I won’t spoil the entire movie for you, but that public hearing was a scene that made the theatre “so quiet you could have heard a pin drop”. With a very emotional closing to the film we got to see some of the passengers as well as Chesley Sullenberger reunite in front of the very plane where Sullenberger saved all one hundred and fifty-five passengers.