To shorten the time, the film gives the false impression that there was a direct Teletype link between the two countries. While the script does take liberties with the facts, I was glad to see that they do reveal the secret deal that we made with the Soviets that none of us could be aware of during the actual events. The public perception that we had was that the Soviets had simply backed down to U.S. power because they didn t want to go to war, and that Kennedy had stood his ground and proved that he was no weakling. No mention of NATO and the later removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey was made public at the time, and actually largely lay hidden over the years. At least the film sheds some light on that fact, and will probably spark more interest in this area.
Myths abound in history.
One that I would like to see exposed lies with our false impressions of Khrushchev. I suspect that we will find that Khrushchev is actually a good man at heart once someone explores the details of his life. I once played a Russian chess player who told me that it pained him a great deal to see the bad translation of Khrushchev s most famous moment he insisted that a more accurate translation of we will bury you would be we will endure over you. The theater was having audio difficulties during the previews, and when Costner first utters his ridiculously forced and fake Boston accent I was almost hoping that the theater s audio difficulties would return. Fortunately, Costner seemed to forget about forcing this awful accent a few minutes into the film for the most part, so it became tolerable.