The Cuban Missile Crisis

In Thirteen Days, we experience the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a true story providing you with high drama and a thrilling and captivating historical experience to the viewers. This fast moving thriller reveals how incredibly close we all came to World War III back in October 1962 after President John F. Kennedy discovered the Soviet Union had installed nuclear missiles inside Cuba. This movie walks us through it from the point of view of the ultimate insider from inside the white house. Thirteen Days, directed by Roger Donaldson, is told from the point of view of presidential aid Kenny O'Donnell, who is well played by Kevin Costner. Through his eyes we gain access to President Kennedy's close knit circle during the whole crisis. Bruce Greenwood plays John F. Kennedy and Steven Culp plays brother Robert Kennedy. Along with Bobby, O'Donnell is one of JFK's most trusted confidants and has a close view of the entire crisis as we live it through his eyes. The film pretty much follows the historical timeline of events, beginning with a high flying U-2 spy jet taking photos over Cuba uncovering missile bases under construction. The President must then decide how to respond to this major sudden attack by the Soviets in the Western Hemisphere, so near to the U.S. I think the film's strongest point is that it clearly shows how even the slightest misjudgment by the U.S. or the Soviets during the crisis might have caused events to spiral out of control and could cause a nuclear disaster. With all this stress, President Kennedy struggles to avoid making that one mistake which might cause war with the Soviets. Meanwhile, the President is under heavy pressure from his military chiefs who want to shoot first and deal with the consequences later. The film is defiantly well acted and does a very good job of recreating the time period. It starts off a bit slow and extremely boring in my opinion, and early on I thought it was lacking in its ability to truly grab the intensity that surrounded the events, but it got much better as the story progressed. Costner's performance also worried me early on. I wasn't at first sure what was going on with the fake Boston accents, it was a bit distracting at first, but by the end of the film, it wasn't bothering me at all. I thought that the film was very well researched and written and was well done as a historical film. I am giving this film a 4 star rating, but I must say this is one of those movies where I would like to give a half star. There are no car chases, shoot outs or other thriller type components like I would normally look forward to, but this is a great story, and a well done film. And I did enjoy it. This for me is an unenthusiastic 4 star rating. This is not really my type of interest in movies, I love thriller and action type movies but this is defiantly not very interesting for girls especially. I think men enjoy this film way more than women do. Overall it was