Sully: Miracle On The Hudson (Cert 12, 94 mins)

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Starring: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Mike O’malley, Anna Gunn, Jamey Sheridan, Patch Darragh, Vince Lombardi.

On January 15, 2009, us Airways Flight 1549 takes off from Laguardia airport in New york bound for North Carolina with 155 passengers and crew on board.

Three minutes into take-off, a flock of Canadian geese impacts the aircraft, causing strikes to both engines that necessitated an emergency landing. Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) glides the stricken Airbus A320 onto the Hudson river in freezing conditions and oversees the evacuation of everyone on board aided by First officer Jeff Skiles (Aaron eckhart). The subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Boar, led by Charles Porter (Mike o’malley), elizabeth Davis and Ben edwards, casts doubt on Sully’s version of events.

“I’ve had 40 years in the air, but in the end, I’m going to be judged by 208 seconds,” he says.

Sully: Miracle on The Hudson is a masterclass in sustained tension,

which replays events that fateful day from many perspectives, including air traffic controller Patrick Harten and ferry boat captain (Vince Lombardi, playing himself).

Director Clint eastwood withholds the crash landing in full until the middle of this taut and lean picture, by which time we have fully buckled our seatbelts and are braced for greatness. Screenwriter Todd komarnicki punctuates a deeply human story with different

iterations of the crash landing, including chilling scenes of the Airbus ploughing into skyscrapers when Sully imagines a fruitless attempt to reach Laguardia. Hanks delivers a deeply affecting, yet understated, lead performance, eliciting pathos as he contends with posttraumatic stress disorder in the eye of a media storm.

Tom Hanks as Capt Chesley Sullenberger