Movie 🎥 Review: “Thirteen Days”. Critics gave it a 83% the users an 80%. Rated: PG 13 with a running time 2 hrs and 25 mins with an IMDb of 7.3/10. Cast: Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp, and Dylan Baker just to mention a few.

For thirteen extraordinary days in October of 1962, the world stood on the brink of an unthinkable catastrophe. Across the globe, people anxiously awaited the outcome of a harrowing political, diplomatic and military confrontation that threatened to end in an apocalyptic nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thirteen days captures the urgency, suspense and paralyzing chaos of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Thirteen Days is a 2000 American historical political thriller film directed by Roger Donaldson.  While the film carries the same title as the book Thirteen Days by former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, it is in fact based on a different book, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis, by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow. It is the second docudrama made about the crisis, the first being 1974's The Missiles of October, which was based on Kennedy's book. The 2000 film contains some newly declassified information not available to the earlier production, but takes greater dramatic license, particularly in its choice of O'Donnell as protagonist. It received generally positive reviews from critics who praised the screenplay and performances of the cast but was a major box office failure grossing $66.6 million against its $80 million budget.

So right off I was 12 years old and remember sitting in front of the TV with my parents watching this happen before our eyes. After going through drills at school where we were taught to get under our school desks and cover our faces and watching this played out it kind of scarred me, I won’t lie.

This film was absolutely extraordinary. It’s a movie about the development of foreign policy in a crisis; it spells out with brilliant detail the decision-making process of JFK's inner circle, the tension between the Executive Office of the President and the Departments of State and Defense, and the attempts by the Military Industrial Complex (namely the Joint Chiefs) to undermine the diplomatic approaches favored by the president. It highlights the conflict between military standard operating procedures ("rules of engagement") and the better judgment/common sense of right-thinking human beings. It also hints at conspiracies to (later) depose and otherwise get rid of both Kennedy and Khruschev from within for what turned out to be a very unpopular resolution with the hardliners on both sides.

I can see why this film hasn't been a great commercial success. It is not your standard big studio fare. It's quite cerebral, and although it has some exciting pre-conflict scenes, it's not a "war film". I liked how the Soviets were not cartoonishly vilified, as is common in a lot of Cold War era films. They were shown to be somewhat calculating and strategic, but not irrational or more importantly, inhuman. In fact, one of the most fascinating parts of the film is the revelation that both sides lack information as to the other side's true intentions. It was this uncertainty that back in October 1962, could have led to the end of civilization as we know it.

It is the directing that takes the cake, however. From the moment the chain of events was set in motion, the tension does NOT let up. It actually feels like you are back in 1962 living through the events of those two weeks- honestly, there was nary a moment to relax until the resolution was wrought. I recommend this film especially to individuals that may have heard about and were too young to have any Cold War memory, as well as to those who lived through the era and may have forgotten what it felt like to come this close.

Great Movie, be sure and check out the attached trailer!!. You’ll find it on HBO subscription, iTunes, From $3.99, YouTube From $12.99, Amazon Prime From $12.99, Google Play Movies & TV From $12.99 and Vudu $12.99