Thirteen Days, an enticing look into our most volatile times...

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2006)

Thirteen Days, presented historically dense as well as tense situations in my Modern War Class in a manner which kept you centered into each frame change, on the edge of your plastic chair, desperately attempting to make an assumption of what will happen next in order to avoid further anxiety. I would never have thought I would be presented such a roller coaster ride in an optional/elective course, this roller-coaster ride is a rather intricate one giving you a close look, despite Hollywood theatrical elements, into just how close Uncle Sam's jittery hand came to pressing the button. We are presented two conflicting sides in this movie, the military generals representing the "Hawks" and the Kennedy's representing the "Doves". The enticement factor and anxiety brought on by this movie are solely based on these opposing symbols. The hawks, greatly willing to respond through the "rules of engagement" and shaft the "Red Dog's" who have been digging and instigating at them, and the Doves, trying to "cage" these hawks and prevent them from creating a potentially disastrous hardball approach. We are, in this Movie, more connected with the Doves, not simply because we all want peace to prevail, but because the way the film portrays a menace out of the military generals, and depicts them as officials with a never-quenching thirst for military aggression and war medallions.
Though this movie obviously takes a side, it is a bias that is completely understood and acceptable, as the point addressed is a necessary one which, even today, may need to be reintroduced a second time as these events are history which need not repeating.