Very Few Missteps in this Powerful Historical Thriller

Rating: Null/10 (15 January 2001)

Screenwriters adapting true stories for the screen always need to be careful. Very often the conventions of narrative Hollywood cinema require adjusting the facts to fit into traditional genres and structures, often at the cost of historical fact. At worst you end up with a ragged mess like The Hurricane, a film which refused to be content with a fabulously compelling story and had to tamper with the truth to create easily delineated heroes, villians, and plot points. At best you get All The President's Men, a complex journalistic thriller that you just can't imagine them making today. But getting near that level is Thirteen Days, written by David Self and directed by Roger Donaldson. Based on the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Thirteen Days knows that its story is enough and with the exception of a few moments of saggy sentimentality, the film holds together as a wonderful version of history (though, of course, not a history lesson).
Thirteen Days is probably best appreciated by people who know the whole story, but have forgotten it. It may actually be a little too complicated for the entirely unversed to pick up on everything, while scholars may be more prone to pick the facts apart. For people who lived through the Crisis, of students who have adequately studied it, the plot contains dozens of "Oh Geez, I'd forgotten *that* happened" moments.
Thirteen Days begins with a U2 plane flying over Cuba taking pictures, only to discover that the pictures show Soviet offensive nuclear weapons. For the next two weeks, the world was on the brink of nuclear war as President Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood), Bobby Kennedy (Steven Culp), and [for purposes of cinema] presidential advisor Ken O'Donnell (Kevin Costner) try to balance politics and history to "save the world." Naturally this is a reductive summary. But for the most part what's on screen is what happened, or at least something like what happened.
Several critics of the film have complained that it places far too much emphasis on Kenny O'Donnell's role in the Crisis. Since the actor playing O'Donnell is Kevin Costner (easily the film's largest star) and O'Donnell's son Kevin is one of the men behind Beacon Pictures (which produced the film) a lot seems suspect. Historians have argued that O'Donnell is rarely heard on the actual tapes on which the film is based. I can only urge these people to actually watch the movie. O'Donnell is at the center of the piece, but his role is clear that of fly-on-the-wall. He sits in on the important meetings and rarely speaks. Kennedy certainly asks O'Donnell for advice, but it's always in private and it never feels as if O'Donnell has the final word on anything. His part in the affair is probably slightly amplified, but I don't see the harm.
Additionally, fans of the military may feel good cause to complain about the film's portrayal of the Joint Chiefs and generals as warmongers who want to bomb Cuba back to the stone age regardless of the consequences. Nothing, I suspect, was quite that black and white. However, with the military still reeling from the Bay of Pigs, I have no doubt that much of what the film depicts is true. It isn't like they invented characters to be bad guys like, say, The Hurricane.
David Self's script is mostly wonderfully structured. He was working from a good story, but the film is set up to give nearly every character their moment of triumph, almost like a play. Occasionally there are moments where things become overly cutesy (the generals marching from the oval office muttering, "Those Kennedys..." seems pointlessly melodramatic) and sentimental (Costner's moments with his family), but those parts are easy to forgive.
In the military and political scenes Roger Donaldson's film craft is generally quite wonderful. The grainy look of the Cuba preparations and the US mobilisation are a great touch (the film is shot by Andrzej Bartkowiak the best cinematographer never to be nominated for an Oscar). Donaldson allows the tension to be undermined in the aforementioned sappy scenes, but he makes sure they don't last very long before rushing back to the war rooms offices.
When thinking of performances it must first be admitted that Kevin Costner's Boston accent is horrible and that it takes twenty or thirty minutes to fully ignore it. Once you get beyond that, it's a very good performance and Costner holds the film together with his gravitas.
The two men playing the Kennedys, Culp and Greenwood, give effective performances of different types. Culp looks and sounds exactly like Bobby. It's a little scary at times, to be honest. He has the voice and mannerisms perfectly. Greenwood, on the other hand, looks very little like JFK. However, much like Anthony Hopkins's performance as Nixon, Greenwood's work is so super that by the end, you forget what the real Kennedy looked and sounded like and just accept the man on the screen as the real thing. Greenwood (whose performances in Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter were both Oscar worthy) will be a revelation to American audiences who only know him as a hammy bad guy in films like Disturbing Behaviour, Double Jeopardy, and Rules of Engagement. He's far better than that and this film is proof.
The rest of the supporting cast is equally wonderfully. Donaldson wisely went against the Oliver Stone routine of casting familiar actors in every role no matter how small. With the possible exception of Dylan Baker, most people won't recognise anybody and thus they won't be distracted.
Thirteen Days probably shouldn't be confused with actual historical fact. But it is a well researched, well acted, well directed drama. I'd give it 8.5/10