Category : Not Sure
Description :
No documentary or current affairs report I have ever seen has ever depicted the Cuban Missile Crisis with as much tension, insight, and gut-wrenching dread as the movie Thirteen Days.
The movie opens exactly how it should - with real footage of atmospheric atomic testing that makes you realise with real fear just exactly what millions of people throughtout the world would have experienced in their last dying moments if president Kennedey had made the wrong choice in October of 1962. The movie follows the meetings, intelligence gathering, decisions and private thoughts of the key figures in U.S. during the crisis. It shows that, with perseverance, clear-thinking people can overcome the pressure of knee-jerk reactives and warmongers, and that nuclear weapons are so terrible that both the heads of the USSR and US chose to never use them.
Kevin Costner plays his role of political adviser with care, but, being an advisor, there is little that he can do. Costner is far eclipsed by the impeccible acting of the JFK character, who gets all the key moments exactly right. That's the overall feeling I get - that this film has been made exactly, with every detail just as it should be.
With such explosive and powerful true material to work with, it would be a discredit to creative stories if I rated this movie too highly.
The tension is built so well that when it was all over it really was a genuine relief. Which is strange because we all know that there was no World War 3 in 1962 - but then this just shows that Thirteen Days is a very effective film.
#viewings=1
First seen
in 5/2001
