A fabulous film. Just fabulous.

Rating: Null/10 (29 November 2002)

I know exactly where I was in October of 1962. I was a senior at a small high school in Louisiana and we were more worried about our thus-far undefeated football season than we were about the cold war. In fact, I only vaguely remember the "Cuban Missle Crisis." The year before, our team had won state championship for our small school division, and in 1962 we were ranked first in state, until South Cameron beat us, just barely, in our last game. Since WW III didn't actually occur that fateful month of 1962, we can still have fond memories of that football season that almost was fabulous.

As we now look back, the outcome of the Cuban Missle Crisis may have been the most significant event of the second half of the 20th century, and ultimately the beginnings of the end of the cold war. In "Thirteen Days" we see the still young, first-term president Jack Kennedy, with help from his brother Bobby and his close advisor Kenny O'Donnell, attempt to strike a balance between the military leaders who only need a little incentive to invade Cuba, and his own morals which believes there is a diplomatic solution. The fact that they pulled it off, and got the Soviets to back down, is perhaps the reason we are all here.
This film does a great job of re-creating those 13 days, and the stress everyone involved was under. The DVD is fine if unremarkable, except it has a very nice set of extras, including historical timelines of the missle crisis, and profiles of the actual players in the 1962 war dance. Because of the significance of the story, and how well made this film is, it is one of the few I rate 10/10.