Review of Thirteen Days (2000) by Ben L — 08 Feb 2012

For someone like me who was not around for the Cuban Missile Crisis, movies like this can be really eye-opening. I can't say for sure, but they seem to have accurately represented the impending doom that people felt at that time. It's intriguing watching how close we came to another World War. The movie hopefully does a decent job of showing how much hard work and outside-the-box thinking it took for the President and his advisors to avoid disaster.

I think it's great that they used the actual Kennedy tapes to inspire a lot of the conversations. However it seems surprising that, with a good factual foundation, they would choose to dramatize events so much. The inflation of Kenny O'Donnells role was unnecessary, and just doesn't feel right. I'm sure he was present for a lot of this, but painting him as a primary protagonist is odd. I do appreciate that they took a new perspective on the history, but it seems like accuracy would be more vital when the subject matter is already dramatic enough without going all Hollywood on it.

The only other thing that annoys me (aside from Kevin Costner's laughable accent) is how they seem to vilify the military generals. They seem to draw lines and try to make it clear who are the good peace-lovers and who are the bad war-mongers. Aside from those dramatic choices I think this is a well made movie. The way they used black-and-white in certain scenes added an extra historical feel to those key moments. Thirteen Days may stumble a little because they worked so hard to make it more dramatic, but in the end it is a good look at some of the most dangerous days in US history.