Thirteen Days (2000)

Directed by: Roger Donaldson | 145 minutes | drama, war, thriller | Actors: Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp, Dylan Baker, Bill Smitrovich, Kevin Conway, Henry Strozier, Frank Wood

Expertly crafted thriller based on historical facts. Despite the well-known ending (after all, there was no war between the US and the Soviet Union), ‘Thirteen Days’ has turned out to be an astonishingly suspenseful film. It becomes all too clear that the fate of the world has hung by a thread during the thirteen days from which the title is derived.

The starting point was the book ‘The Kennedy Tapes’, written by two historians with the help of sound experts. The latter have intercepted and transcribed tapes made by the president of his meetings during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As a result, the historical accuracy has become very great and some discussions have even been reproduced verbatim in the film.

This makes ‘Thirteen Days’ historically very accurate, where in many ‘true stories’ on film, reality is often taken for granted. Only the role of consultant Kenny O’Donnell (Costner) has been enlarged for the film, to give the film an emotional anchor and identification for the viewer.

Crucial in a film that portrays such well-known historical figures as John F. and Robert F. Kennedy is how believable the actors are. Not only in terms of appearance and the pronounced jawlines and teeth, but especially because the brothers had a very pronounced East Coast accent. Fortunately, Bruce Greenwood as the president and Steven Culp as his brother and Attorney General are doing well. Greenwood generally knows how to imitate the voice well and by filming him a lot from behind and to the side, he manages to approximate JFK’s appearance quite well. Culp is almost perfect as Bobby Kennedy. Skinny and wiry, with the right head, manners and temperament, he is the most convincing of the duo. Also the actors in the supporting roles often look eerily similar to their historical counterparts. Dylan Baker is an excellent Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense) who has a reputation for being a cool frog and steals the show in a Pentagon scene, when he has a huge verbal altercation with an admiral over firing on Russian ships.

‘Thirteen Days’ is a real ‘talking film’, in which discussions and arguments mainly take place within the conference rooms of the White House. Despite the perhaps somewhat dull-looking premise, there is an oppressive atmosphere, enhanced by the realization that these men were really in charge of whether a nuclear war would break out.

What the viewer doesn’t get to see is the decision-making process within the Kremlin. It is told purely from the American perspective and how they react step-by-step.

Because there is occasionally a fair dose of luck and in a bureaucratized society all kinds of agencies carry out actions (such as scheduled nuclear tests) without the knowledge of the people at the top and that increase the threat, it also becomes clear that even in the most powerful country in the world is not always in control of events.

The Americans are also very divided among themselves. The army command and some advisers want to bomb Cuba right away, while others want to try to solve the matter diplomatically. The way Kennedy and his advisers try to solve the ‘Cuba crisis’ makes for a rock-solid historical thriller.