by Matt McKenna
Sully isn't a movie about a pilot’s heroic skill to land a plane on the Hudson river and save the lives of the hundred-fifty-five people onboard. Instead, it is a movie about the decision by a pilot to land the plane on the Hudson River and what it must feel like to be both praised and second guessed for that decision. The movie is therefore an analogy for living in the aftermath of any tough choice made in public, and has there ever been a choice made in public tougher than Apple CEO Tim Cook’s choice to remove the headphone jack from the new iPhone?
Sully is based on the real life story of Captain Chesley Sullenberger who, after having a bunch of birds slam into both engines of the airliner he was flying, lands the aircraft on the Hudson River. Miraculously, everyone on the flight survived. Understandably though tiresomely, the movie repeatedly revisits the moment the birds hit the engines, probably because it's one of the few dramatic events in an otherwise pretty thin story. Not that I mind a short movie, but even after showing a dozen views of the plane splashing into the river, Sully still clocks in at only ninety-six minutes. And outside the water landing, the story that does exist is mostly fictional including the comically evil antagonists of the film, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigating the incident. For unexplained reasons, the NTSB desperately wants to prove that Captain Sullenberger should have turned the plane around to land back at LaGuardia Airport instead of dropping it into the Hudson. In reality, the NTSB didn’t try to prove that at all, but it’s hard to blame screenwriter Todd Komarnicki for adding this twist since it is the film’s only source of drama after the landing itself.