Highly acclaimed director Clint Eastwood tells the miraculous true story of  US Airways Flight 1549 through the big screen in his most recent film, Sully. This flick stars Tom Hanks as pilot Chesley Sullenberger, also known as “Sully”, as well as Aaron Eckhart who plays Sully’s co-pilot, Jeff Skiles. Jumping around from flashbacks to stressed-induced nightmares, the narrative of the movie follows the psyche of Sully during and after his inexplicable choice to land the a passenger plane, containing 155 total people inside, into the Hudson river after both engines seemingly failed.

It would’ve been an effortless task to simply tell the story of what happened, which definitely makes for a interesting story, but Eastwood pursued to go into the mind of the captain. The world sees Chelsey Sullenberger through his humble words and confident posture, but the movie goes deep into Sully’s roller coaster of emotions. Hundreds of newspaper articles and broadcasts recount the events of Jan. 15th, 2009, however, Sully manages to keep the story fresh and interesting.

The editing in the movie is simply superb, an essential component to the storytelling as well. Flashbacks often are triggered with an exciting transition or a raise in sound, making the movie legitimately exciting. Cutting around to different sections in the story is not only seamless, but keeps the movie compelling. Not knowing what is going to happen next isn’t something that biopics often do, however Eastwood took the risk and it definitely delivered.

Watching the movie in a more premium theater showed off the excellent sound design. The plane falling in altitude, diving straight into the river, was made much more intense through loud rising of sound until finally hitting impact. It made the movie very immersive, potentially incepting fear of planes to those who watch the flick.

Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart delivered great performances as the pilot and co-pilot. Both men did a great job portraying the humanity in their roles, as well as delivering great chemistry together making their friendship believable. Their weren’t many moments that required the actors to show-off their acting potential, however, their subtlety in being human was something that stood out. Their acting performances reflected a sense of realism, which was additionally shared by the rest of the cast.

Biopics often have selected scenes that carry the movie, holding high emotion through slow motion shots charged by a powerful score. That’s not the case with Sully, with the foundation in reality provoking emotion in much more realistic ways. Quick shots of the passengers crying, texting their family goodbye, laughing on the phone in disbelief of their survival, were the small highlights that made this movie realistic.

The movie didn’t seem overdramatized in any way, something Hollywood has a problem with (I’m looking at you Oliver Stone). The viewers were presented with the real life struggles of everyone involved in the story, including the politics of investigators trying to find out what actually happened after the events.

One gripe I did have with the movie is that it didn’t go more in depth into the investigation of the landing. At only 96 minutes long, I was so interested in the scenes involving interrogation that I wish we had more of it. It made the movie feel so unique.

Another let down was the ending. The movie goes through so many exciting moments, I felt like the director didn’t really know how to, wait for it, smoothly land the plane for the conclusion. In all seriousness, the ending did leave a lot more to be desired and I felt like the movie had more story to tell.

All in all, Sully is a great example of cinema being an effective medium to tell the story of real life events. Realistic performances and great storytelling make the movie memorable, even amidst the thirty-five movies Clint Eastwood has directed, making Eastwood and Hanks that much more prestigious, as Sully will most likely dominate in next year’s Academy of Awards.