Thirteen Days

Yes, Thirteen Days is another Kevin Costner revisionist history epic centering around John F. Kennedy (i.e. JFK). But there's no denying that this fly-on-the-wall, pressure-cooker dramatization of what went down at the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis transports the audience into the thick of the Kennedy inner circle. Costner plays Kenny O'Donnell, a close friend and presidential adviser during the Camelot years, who serves as our backstage pass as JFK (Bruce Greenwood) and Bobby (Steven Culp) play hardball with the USSR and hawks at the Pentagon trying to avert nuclear disaster. Director Roger Donaldson has a great command of the narrative, going out of his way to find fresh approaches for bringing trepidation to a story with an outcome that every audience member knows going in. But the strongest element may be the portrayal of the friendship between O'Donnell and the Kennedys, which seems to faithfully capture the spirit and atmosphere--if not the absolute facts--of the most disquieting two weeks the world has ever known. [Note: the DVD version includes a tightly integrated interactive feature that allows viewers at various points during the film to access additional historical and biographical information.] Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)