Unnecessary Star

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2001)

Kevin Costner's character was totally unnecessary to this film. We could have done without the attempt to turn the Missile Crisis into a personal drama. The attempt to make this episode universal managed to trivialize it. Those same themes were dealt with more cogently in "Fail-Safe," both the film from the Missile Crisis era, and the recent live TV broadcast. I was hoping (against hope) that some new perspective would be added, and for a while, it appeared as though the Adlai Stevenson storyline would be pursued. I was wrong. Instead, we got more of the Costner family.
Also, Costner should avoid doing accents: not only does he do them badly (see, e.g., "JFK") but it is patronizing to assume that everyone from a given locale must have an accent. I've known a few people from the Boston area, and no one sounded like that.
Also, I want to know if it is possible to have a spoiler in a comment on a docudrama? Possibly there are some viewers who might not be aware how the crisis was resolved.