Sully

Reliving one of the most extraordinary events of recent times -- the water landing of US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River -- certainly makes for an interesting time at the movies. But that's not all that's going on here; the investigation of the incident, which forms the bulk of the movie's plot, raises the interesting philosophical question about just how much we should rely upon analysis by our computer tools -- especially in light of the fact that, like Captain Sullenberger's skill piloting an aircraft, a computer's knowledge is only as extensive as the human experience of the person who programs it. Perhaps AI will change that equation, but, as this film emphatically makes clear, we're not there yet, and sometimes it's human intuition that must rule the day for everything to work out OK. Tom Hanks gives a solid yet restrained performance in the title role, while Aaron Eckhart gets in most of the good lines as his co-pilot Jeff Skiles; and excellent supporting work is done by everyone portraying the first responders who got out to that plane and drew the dramatic story to its happy ending. Good stuff, important stuff, and worth thinking about long after the film's relatively short running time comes to a close.