If Kevin Costner wants to be Meryl Streep, he should give up on accents and just borrow a dress from her. His attempt at a Harvard educated Boston accent is alarming at first, sounding both forced and distracting, then settling into a pretty good imitation of Elmer Fudd. It’s unfortunate he was allowed to make an attempt at showing range, because Thirteen Days is a very good movie that could have been one of the year’s best if only someone had told him to stand off camera more often.
Thirteen Days tells one side of the story of the tense, two-week period in October of 1962 when the United States and Russia went nose to nose over Soviet missiles in Cuba. Having not paid enough attention in American history class, I can’t speak to the movie’s historical accuracy. Certainly dramatic liberties were taken in the interest of pacing, but not at the expense of credibility. All the action, all the back-room drama, and all the internal conflict feel genuine and honest. Thirteen Days is an intense political thriller that is surprisingly nail-biting considering most people already know the ending.
The film is anchored by a pair of outstanding performances. Bruce Greenwood as John F. Kennedy and Steven Culp as Robert F. Kennedy abandon the cliché approaches others have made by concentrating less on speech patterns and taking a more internal approach. It’s a relief to watch an interpretation of one of the most famous political figures in US history and not have it presented in a romantic, Camelot kind of way. Greenwood portrays Kennedy as a man caught in an impossible situation. The future of the world quite literally turns on his decisions, and instead of a grandstanding, heroic performance, Greenwood plays JFK with a powerful but sensitive command. The supporting cast, including Dylan Baker as Robert McNamara, is also impressive.
Thirteen Days is engaging and exciting, qualities a good political thriller should have. Director Roger Donaldson has worked with Kevin Costner before, in another engaging political thriller, No Way Out. The material in Thirteen Days is more compelling – truth always is – but Costner can’t keep up with the other performances in this movie. He doesn’t pull the entire movie down with him, but the scenes where he’s prominently featured are the weakest in an otherwise powerful movie. If you’re not a fan of Kevin’s, see it in spite of him. If you are a fan, well, to each his own.
+ David Kern
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