Thirteen Days: Movie & DVD Review (2000)

(Originally published 2000)

Roger Donaldson’s “Thirteen Days,” the smart, provocative, revisionistic recreation of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, has a worrisome beginning--not because of any Russian missiles aimed at U.S. shores, but because of Kevin Costner’s jarring Boston brogue, which is so thick and difficult to listen to, it initially seems as if the movie will be destroyed by it.

It isn’t. In fact, the good news here is that “Thirteen Days” is so well-written, acted and involving, the heavy-handed accents of its three major players--Kenny O’Donnell (Costner), John F. Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) and Bobby Kennedy (Steven Culp)--eventually pack less and less of a distracting punch as the drama unfolds with its white-hot brand of energy.

The film, from a screenplay by David Self, is based on historical fact, but since it isn’t a documentary, liberties have been taken to recreate a crisis that nearly left millions dead from nuclear war. Though the outcome is known going into the film, it’s to director Donaldson’s great credit that he’s nevertheless able to build unflagging tension in what could have been two-and-a-half hours of tedium.

What he and Self envision isn’t just a possible war fought against Russia, but a very real war fought within the White House. The best scenes in “Thirteen Days” revolve around Kennedy’s ongoing fight to keep his advisors--particularly Gen. Curtis LeMay (Kevin Conway), Gen. Maxwell Taylor (Bill Smitrovich) and Dean Acheson (Len Cariou), each of whom is desperate to save face after the botched Bay of Pigs--from undermining him at every turn and thus sending us into a war that could be avoided.

For guidance, Kennedy consistently turns to his hot-headed brother, Bobby, and to the slightly cooler O’Donnell, a man who may have been one of Kennedy’s closest aids, but who, history reminds us, never had the upperhand the way he has here.

Without question, the decision to beef up O’Donnell’s influence over JFK will bother some political and historical purists, so it’s important to emphasize where “Thirteen Days” is coming from. It’s not so much interested in presenting 145 minutes of non-stop fact, even though its core is steeped in it. Instead, mirroring Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” and “JFK,” not to mention the 1974 television movie based on the crisis, “The Missiles of October,” it’s more interested in capturing the myth borne out of a tumultuous time.

The result is a film that sees the big picture while reasonably imagining the drama that took place behind closed doors.

As O’Donnell, Costner eventually tempers his accent to deliver a fine performance, but what’s more impressive about him is how willing he is to share the screen with the film’s two other stars, Greenwood and Culp. As Bobby Kennedy, Culp is great, but it’s Bruce Greenwood’s performance as JFK that steals the show and gives the film its enormous power. His performance isn’t merely physical, but Throughout, Greenwood strikes the perfect balance of strength and vulnerability.

Grade: A-