Thirteen Days

This wordy, self-important and painfully long account of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, has Jack and  Bobby Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood  and Steven Culp) with some help from Kevin Costner’s character, up against the Pentagon hawks as together they steer the world away from nuclear disaster.

Given that the events are well-documented I presume the script is reasonably historically accurate but it's such a heavily romanticised picture of the Kennedys and contemporary realpolitik that it comes across as pure Hollywood construction (it could as easily have been about an underdog sports team out to win the local baseball/football premiership), the stock footage and arbitrary reversion to black and white photography notwithstanding. One can't help thinking of Dr. Strangelove (964) shorn of the absurdist wit.

Kevin Costner (who also co-produced) affects some strange manner of speaking which apparently is intended to be a Boston accent. The film was very well-received critically Stateside but I can't imagine this having much appeal offshore, unless for hardened devotees of White House doings.

 

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