Tom Hanks plays the heroic Hudson River pilot in Sully, and makes us all feel safer about flying. Sue de Groot reviews the blockbuster film about a real-life miracle landingThere is only one verbal reference to 9/11 in Sully, but it must have been top of mind for everyone who saw US Airways Flight 1549 come barrelling down low over New York on January 15 2009.As it took off from LaGuardia airport, a bird strike took out both the Airbus A320's engines. Just over three minutes later, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger landed the jet in the middle of the Hudson River.All 155 people on board survived the landing and the sub-zero temperatures and everyone was rescued in less than 24 minutes by river boats and police. (I'm not giving away any spoilers by telling you all this because it was splashed about in the media at the time, and in any case the film has a taut back-and-forth time frame that keeps the suspense alive even when you know what is going to happen.)As remarkable as this event was, it does not sound like enough for the plot of a 96-minute movie, but writer Todd Komarnicki has crafted a clever script that makes a rollicking human drama out of the forced landing, the rescue and the subsequent investigation into the decision taken by the captain.Veteran actor and incurable nice guy Tom Hanks makes a perfect Sully, the veteran pilot and incurable nice guy who, despite 42 years of flying experience, had to justify his instinctual actions while being measured against a battery of tests and simulations performed by insurance and safety investigators.The film provides a crash course in flying and the aviation industry that, combined with the avuncular unshakeability of its hero, makes one feel oddly more confident about flying.With the patriotic Clint Eastwood in the director's chair it is probably fair to assume that this was intentional, as was releasing Sully on the weekend marking the anniversary of 9/11.All that aside, Sully is just the sort of hero the world loves: an upstanding man in uniform who has a conscience, a loving wife (played by Laura Linney) and an aversion to being in the spotlight. Cynics may gag slightly during the scene where he insists on giving credit to everyone else, particularly his co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles (Aaron Eckhart, with whom Hanks shares some touching male bonding scenes) but since this too is based on fact, it is not just forgivable but really rather lovely.Rating: 4/5..