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THIRTEEN
DAYS
7/10
US
2000
dir
Roger Donaldson
scr David Self (based on book The Kennedy Tapes, edited by E R
May and P D Zelikow)
cin Andrzej Bartkowiak
stars Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp, Dylan Baker
145 minutes
Thirteen
Days is a surprisingly sober dramatisation of the Cuban missile crisis
of 1962, mercifully avoiding – at least until the last quarter hour –
this kind of material’s usual patriotic flag-waving. It’s a thoroughly
careful, mature production, lifted out of the ordinary by the spot-on
pair of performances by Greenwood and Culp as John F and Bobby Kennedy.
Though Costner gets top billing as their trusted advisor Kenny O’Donnell,
he’s essentially a peripheral figure, looking on as the President and
Attorney General wrestle with their hawkish military chiefs, their nervy
government colleagues and, trickiest of all, their own consciences.
Director
Donaldson recognises Greenwood and Culp as his trump cards, wisely concentrating
on their White House machinations, breaking things up with an occasional
burst of air/sea action. He resists the temptation to fancy things up
on the visual side, apart from a few distracting transitions between monochrome
and colour. He crafts a smooth technical package around a script that
presents the historical events with, for the most part, straightforward
clarity, sustaining tension over the long running time even though the
audiences know the outcome in advance. But the tight focus means many
fascinating characters and aspects of the story remain undeveloped - First
Lady Jackie Kennedy pops up for about five seconds at the start, and there’s
no sign at all of either Bobby’s family or, more bafflingly, Vice President
Lyndon Johnson.
It’s
also fair comment to regret the one-sidedness of the movie, with little
attempt made to humanise or explain the Russian/Cuban view of the situation,
apart from one slightly awkward moment when Costner unexpectedly finds
himself in an ante-room with a female Soviet apparatchik. The camera zooms
in clumsily on her red-star badge, and she’s plainly a bag of nerves,
but the scene ends before it can explore this promising avenue further.
Then again, by making the Soviets’ movements inscrutably mysterious –
a combination of military strategy and blundering incompetence, from what
we can see – the movie more effectively conveys the state of mind of the
American side at this fractious point in history, which is all it really
wants to do. An even-handed exploration of ‘the enemy’ would require
an even lengthier running time.
As
it is, the story barrels along at a fair rate without ever slipping over
into melodrama, though the breakfast-table scene towards the end - where
an exhausted Costner breaks down in front of his wife and five kids –
is a rare moment of sentimental indulgence. The closing scene, however,
is much more in keeping with the classy maturity of what’s gone before,
with first the Kennedys, then their shadows, fading from view, the President’s
defiant words echoing boldly into the darkness.
14th
March, 2001
by Neil
Young
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