The first trailer for Sully, the movie based on the ditching of US Air Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009, was released Thursday. It doesn’t take as long to watch as the 208 seconds it took Capt. Chesley Sullenberger and his FO Jeff Skiles to pull off the so-called Miracle on the Hudson but already there is “Oscar buzz.” To be fair, it’s been widely reported that Sullenberger, who was commanding the A320 on a morning flight from La Guardia to Charlotte, signed off on almost everything to do with the depiction of the cockpit action, the investigation and his much-more-than-15-minutes of resulting fame. The 123 seconds of film in the trailer suggests producer Clint Eastwood listened to Sullenberger and the dialogue and story ring true.
Since there’s no mystery about the cause, the result and the outcome of the Airbus’s encounter with a flock of Canada geese on that cold January morning, the film instead appears to be focused on the “untold story” of the investigation and the various things that coulda, shoulda, mighta been done differently. It’s hard to argue with the outcome, however, and most of the 155 people on board stepped aboard rescue boats with little more discomfort than wet feet. On Sept. 9 we can all see how Sullenberger, Hanks, Eastwood and Aaron Eckhart, who plays Skiles, portray the apparent blamefest that followed and the hero moniker that will stay with Sullenberger for the rest of his life.
