2000 Directed by Roger Donaldson
Dramatisation of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missle bases established on the Soviet allied island of Cuba. Shown from the perspective of the US President, John F Kennedy, his staff and advisors.
Shawn Driscoll Kevin Costner Drake Cook Lucinda Jenney Caitlin Wachs Jon Foster Matthew Dunn Kevin O'Donnell Janet Coleman Bruce Thomas Stephanie Romanov Bruce Greenwood Frank Wood Dakin Matthews Liz Sinclair Colette O'Connell Karen Ludwig Audrey Rapoport Marliese Schneider Steven Culp Dylan Baker Bill Smitrovich Henry Strozier Ed Lauter Michael Fairman
Peter O. Almond Armyan Bernstein Marc Abraham Thomas A. Bliss Kevin Costner Angela Heald Nancy Rae Stone
David E. Fluhr Adam Jenkins Michael Herbick Wade Wilson Steven D. Williams Harry Cohen Carey Milbradt Geoffrey G. Rubay Ann Scibelli
It's quite a sobering thought to ponder that had the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 gone a different way, many of us may not even have been born. Thirteen Days succeeds for the most part in conveying, as the tagline says, just how unbelievably close we came to a Third World War and, let's be honest, nuclear Armageddon. Roger Donaldson's film takes what could have been an extremely dry approach in the form of a docu-drama and manages to spin out of it a sprawling but surprisingly tense narrative, despite being largely made up of men talking in rooms; it doesn't feel particularly cinematic in many places but it's attention to detail and visibly exhaustive research, coupled with a number…
Thirteen Days is about the.......*sigh* thirteen days in which the USA were in a missile tangle with the Soviets & Cuba, which was very close to resulting in a full blown Nuclear War (notice how I used capitals on each word to put across its seriousness).
I appreciate though, that director Roger Donaldson doesn't take an overly serious approach to the material. I was expecting a rigid, immensely talky, head scratchingly political drama, but RD gives it some 'movie oomph'. There is a persistent score which hints at patriotism and impending doom, and there's some really nice sequences in jets and boats that jolt your adrenalin between the heavy dialogue scenes.
The performances too, are aggressive and enjoyable.
But ultimately, it…
It's imperative that every viewing of this film be in black and white, with the brightness and contrast dimmed.
Sucking the colours out gives the film a very Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove level tension at points in another film regarding humanity's experience with nuclear weapons, following the days of the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I do not envy the immense task Jack and Bobby Kennedy endured in politics. Not in the slightest.
61/100
[originally written on my blog]
Previously addressed in this format upon release [I'll add that earlier review to this site eventually], though I mostly just bitch about Costner's accent. Which bothers me less now than do the film's strenuous efforts to "humanize" the crisis, with relative small fry O'Donnell staring wistfully at the-son-who-might-be-nuked-tomorrow at a little league game and so forth. Still largely succeeds at making diplomacy exciting, if sometimes in the manner of an underdog sports movie: Adlai Stevenson is like the rookie 2nd-string quarterback who springs to life just as asst. coach Bobby K.'s about to sideline him. (Steven Culp's performance as the latter remains one of the best out-of-nowhere-and-right-back-again turns in recent memory.) This would never be a theatrical feature today, would it? It'd be developed for TV from the jump. Too talky, too subdued, too old. World saved not by derring-do but by back-channel agreement to mutually cave.
Bruce Greenwood gives the best onscreen portrayal of John F Kennedy, theres' really no contest here. Much like Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, Greenwood doesn’t so much impersonate the man, but gives his own take on the individual. It’s his strongest performance in a career filled with high points. His Kennedy is one for ages.
I've had to watch this in every high school governement class I've taken.
The system really is broken.
a fairly efficient, only slightly Hollywood-ised telling of the 13 days (or should I say, very specifically, Thirteen days) in which the Cuban Missile Crisis came to a head. The info-laden dialogue is heavy and at times dispassionate but nonetheless conveys the magnitude of what these (absolute units) went through. Attempts to poeticise the story's telling fall flat (specifically the sporadic and clunky use of black and white), the overtly patriotic ending is overtly patriotic, but most troubling of all was the fact that I watched this with my Dad on a 6-foot projector screen and the website we streamed it on popped up halfway through with a boatload of vaginas. Woohoo!
A fascinating historical insight in which Kevin Costner as presidential aide Kenneth O'Donnell, Steven Culp as Robert F. Kennedy and Bruce Greenwood as President John F. Kennedy, make for a compelling screen triumvirate.
Roger Donaldson's film is set deep in the heart of the Washington political arena, as political and military leaders wrestle with their consciences against the backdrop of possible nuclear war.
No attempt is made to convey the tension that must have gripped ordinary people the world over. In this sense, it's very much a contained, one-dimensional thriller. It's also perhaps inevitable then that it fails to capture the profound nature of events so symbolic of the timeless struggles of mankind.
Más que entretenida novelización de los febriles días que vivió el gobierno de los EEUU del presidente Kennedy durante la crisis de los misiles cubanos.
Aparte del exagerado papel del asistente de Kennedy, Kenneth O'Donnell, en el devenir de los acontecimientos, la peli resulta en una aceptable e intensa historia sobre uno de los momentos más tensos de la Guerra Fría. Obviamente, es benevolente con la gestión de JFK de la crisis, como no podía ser de otro modo con la vaca sagrada de los presis yankiees.
Realmente, no hay mucho más que decir. Entretenida, correcta, y buena manera de entrar en el periodo histórico.
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