Sullly, the film

Sully is Clint Eastwood's latest bio-pic -- the story of Captain, Chesley Sullenberger, "Sully" who landed an Aeirbus  plane with 156 people aboard in the Hudson River one frigid winter day when they ran into a flock of geese that knocked out both engines on the plane.  This is a story close to my heart because I lived only a few blocks from where the plane went down although I knew nothing about it until evening news.

As some fictional news reporter says at one point in the film, "It is wonderful to have a New York story about airplanes where no one is hurt.  It is a hero story, Sully most of all, the co-pilot also, and, as Sully says at the end of the movie, all the rescue personnel who came to the aid of those passengers who jumped out of the plane, onto rafts, or into the water that day in January which was -- and I remember this -- frigid. The air temperature was not much above freezing and the water was cold enough to cause hypothermia in a very short time. Yet, within 24 minutes everyone was rescued.

Much of the movie's tension was about the hearings held by the Airbus insurance company trying to prove that the plane could have been landed in either of the three nearby airports without damage to the plane.  I have a deep, deep hatred for insurance companies and the personnel were beautifully played and written.

Meanwhile Tom Hanks was a very fine Sully -- I have a picture of the actual man in my mind, slenderer, less bulky but in the hands of a very good and competent actor like Hanks I willingly  suspended disbelief.  It is a "feel good" movie and all the better because in essence (despite however the scriptwriter punched up the struggle for truth, it leave the viewer with a lump in the throat and a warm and fuzzy feeling around the heart.  Thank you. Mr. Eastwood!