Excellent political thriller that goes to amazing efforts to stay true to reality.

Rating: 9/10 (16 July 2001)

One of the most important things about movies that deal with true historical events is that they take as few liberties as possible with the facts, and Thirteen Days stays amazingly close to what really happened. The 1960s are re-created with almost the same skill and precision as we saw in the great Apollo 13, and the tension created by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the event upon which the movie is based, is very successfully captured in the film. This is one of the best parts of the movie, because that tension is something that the government at the time tried very hard to keep the public from finding out about.
The film is basically a behind the scenes look at how the government under the Kennedy administration operated with the Russians and with the press in handling the problem of offensive missiles seen in Cuba, within firing range of the U.S. The conflict is much more significant than just getting the Russians to remove the missiles, because the U.S military is doing everything possible to get authorization to fire upon Cuba and go to war. This is understandable to a certain degree, because the military spends so much time training for something like this so of course they're going to want to move on it, but it also makes the chief of staff in the film come off as a hot-headed redneck who just wants to blast the Cubans out of the water.
John F. Kennedy was brilliantly portrayed by Bruce Greenwood, which is surprising because of his less than enviable iconography (yeah, he was that jerk in Rules of Engagement and that jerk in Double Jeopardy and, if my memory serves me, he was also that jerk in Disturbing Behavior). Kevin Costner stumbles over every line in the film, delivering one of the most badly mangled fake accents in film history. I personally think that Costner is a very good actor (I even liked Waterworld), but he was entirely the wrong person for the part of Kenny O'Donnell - his horrific accent overshadowed every other element of his performance.
But as a political and historical thriller, Thirteen Days scores big. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the reactions of the government and the press and the public are re-created with stunning detail, and the results are outstanding. Even younger generations who were not born when the crisis happened can enjoy it because of its brisk pace and well-written script. Thirteen Days manages to avoid being a boring semi-documentary, yet retains its historical accuracy and achieves maximum effect.