Thirteen Days, Two Hours, and Fifteen Minutes

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2001)

It takes truly masterful filmmaking to take one of the most terrifying and unthinkable moments in world history and make it into a movie with all the drama and excitement of C-SPAN. After signoff. During a power failure.

Uhhhhh, no - I didn't much care for this movie. Too bad, too. I was very anxious to see it. When I saw trailers for "Apollo 13", I was excited because, after all: here was a true stroy with real suspense and a happy ending. How could you possibly screw that up? Well, good thing that Ron Howard never asked "Thirteen Days" director Roger Donaldson that question, because he evidently has the answer. I was hoping for a repeat of the satisfaction I got from "Apollo 13" with "Thirteen Days". I was sorely disappointed.
"Thirteen Days" is badly written. Characters launch into pointless silioquies that sound very profound and affecting if you don't actually listen to them. Unfortunately, I listened and heard many words with very little said. Again, this is like watching C-SPAN (Let me explain for the benefit of our friends outside of the U.S. C-SPAN is a television channel that broadcasts from a camera bolted to the floor of the Senate and/or the Congress. It is very useful for torturing schoolchildren and as a sleep-aid for adults).
"Thirteen Days" is a failed epic. The film occasionally slips into black-and-white which, given the historical content of the film, might have been used to give it a feeling of history. However, the black-and-white scenes seem to occur at random. There is also an incredibly annoying amount of stock footage used. I can understand the use of atomic bomb test stock footage, but there's also a huge amount of stock footage of crowds and "people on the street". Again, some might argue that the filmmakers were trying to achieve a sense of history, but it just comes off as cheap and distracting. The film seems to go out of it's way to break your suspension of disbelief and remind you that you are watching a movie.
"Thirteen Days" is badly cast and acted. Kevin Costner is stiff as a board and his Boston accent comes and goes as randomly as the black-and-white scenes. Bruce Greenwood acts competently, but he's not a very convincing John F. Kennedy. Steven Culp is fairly acceptable as Robert Kennedy, although the weak script doesn't give him much to work with. Michael Fairman plays Adali Stevenson, a perenially weak politician who overcomes his weakness while telling off the Soviet ambassador during a U.N. conference. Unfortunately, the only real indication that he overcame his weakness is that the rest of the cast cheers him while watching on TV. Nope - no character development there.
"Thirteen Days" basically fails on every level. It's insufferably dull, uninteresting, bereft of sympathetic characters, and despite dealing with the near end of human civilization, does nothing to fire the imagination or provoke thought...other than what might be good at the snack bar. Instead, I reccomend watching two and a quarter hour's worth of C-SPAN. The characters are much more believable.