Sully

If anyone was going to direct a movie celebrating simple, unadorned competence, it would be Clint Eastwood. Eastwood has a reputation as a straight-shooter when it comes to making movies - he's known for keeping it pragmatic and uncomplicated on the set, and that shows in the finished product. 

Sometimes this can result in a movie that's perfectly acceptable but not all that memorable, but there are times when Eastwood's approach and attitudes are in sync with the material, and that's when you get a movie that digs a little deeper than one might expect. His latest, Sully, is one such example.

The story of the 'Miracle on the Hudson', a 2009 passenger flight that experienced catastrophic engine failure immediately after take-off and was forced to make an emergency landing on New York's icy Hudson River in the middle of winter, may not have seemed natural for a feature film.

After all, the entire event - from engine failure to water landing - was essentially over in 208 seconds.

However, in the hands of Eastwood - and those of Tom Hanks, who plays pilot Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger - it becomes a gripping story of how a brush with death can have a lingering aftershock, even when the outcome is as good as it gets.

Not a single life was lost when Sully and first officer Jeff Skiles (good work from Aaron Eckhart) safely landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River.

But Sully is haunted nonetheless, firstly by thoughts of the disastrous possibilities if he hadn't successfully steered the plane away from the city centre. And then by the interrogation of the National Transportation Safety Board, which has to ascertain whether Sully could have safely landed the plane at a nearby airport. With 40 years of flying to his name, Sully is confident he did the right thing. But proving it is another matter entirely.

It's an interesting angle from which to approach this particular story and one that pays many more dividends than a traditional heroic biopic.

Sully is a modest, unassuming man, one who clearly feels uncomfortable being both celebrated and questioned for doing what he considers his job, and both Eastwood and Hanks strike a great balance between exploring that part of his story and paying tribute to his precise, level-handed response to a pilot's worst nightmare.