Costner's character ruins it

Rating: 5/10 (11 January 2004)

Costner's character is completely unbelieveable. The character comes off as showing almost no respect for the presidency, instead the president appears to be practically a puppet in his hands. It reeks of vanity from Costner's side.
While there were three major sides involved - USA, Soviet Union and Cuba - even though Thirteen Days is 2.5 hours long the Soviet and the Cuban side of the story is never shown, the movie focuses exclusively on the US. What motivated the Soviet and Cuban leadership? How did they react during the crisis? Surely it would have been interesting to get a glimpse of that.
In the end Thirteen Days is part documentary - with the usual liberties taken with regard to the truth - and part propaganda. Quite silly considering that the cold war has been over for a long time now.