Great, intense and accurate

Rating: 9/10 (13 October 2008)

I'm a bit partial on this since the Cold War is a favorite subject of mine. However, despite knowing the details and also the obvious fact world didn't end in the 1960s because of a global nuclear conflict, the movie kept a tight grip. It was not boring at all even if it's about politics and talk. In fact, I bet it works as a nice primer on the subject and it might even spark interest if shown to those who mostly learn of the subject from school books.
What I love about this movie is that as far as I know it's very, very accurate (if you don't count some little details seen and that kind of nitpicking). Still, it's as intense as JFK (that I bet most people agree invents a lot of stuff to make it interesting) and has similarly very interesting characters and scenes.
For example, I found it fascinating how the film showed people machinating and filtering facts behind the scenes (something that doesn't really come through when reading about it), this time for the *good* of mankind. A sane person will want to forget about some little aggressions - like bullet holes in a fighter jet - when any justified retaliation or accusation could escalate into millions of people dying in an instant. Maybe that exact thing didn't really happen but it is entirely believable and I thought gives some ideas how the personality and gut instinct of the guys in charge is what makes everything tick - not the official actions and reports.
Now that I mentioned JFK: apart from Costner, the two films have something else in common: using black and white footage mixed with color footage - and I have to say in Thirteen Days it didn't really work. The b/w scenes (that fade in and out of color) add nothing. I think the purpose was to underline significant historical details but considering how accurate the movie is that's overkill. Thus they only managed to annoy me a bit. Still a very minor flaw and the only one.
The acting was top notch, although I have to reiterate that for me, the whole mood, intensity and factual accuracy takes the cake. Overall, very, very good.
P.S. For more "guys in a room and deciding of the fates of millions of people" goodness, check out the made-for-TV movie Conspiracy.