Thirteen Days
(2000)
Kevin
Costner’s desire to return to the era that proved so fruitful nearly a decade
earlier with JFK was understandable,
and the Cuban Missile Crisis is a subject replete with so many opportunities for
drama and tension that it would take some very clumsy hands to mess it up. It’s
ironic, then, that the least effective aspect of the film is Costner himself.
Which is not
to say that he gives a poor performance. This is a typical Costner role, one
that echoes the courageous family man type audiences have already seen several
times (in the likes of The Untouchables
and JFK). Admittedly, the star was
widely taken to task for his dodgy Boston accent but I can’t say it
particularly distracted me (aside from Costner occasionally looking as if he is
chewing marbles).
The real
problem is really that his character, Special Assistant to the President Kenny
O’Donnell is uncomfortably shoehorned into a central role. During intensive
discussions between JFK and Bobby Kennedy (marvellously played by Bruce
Greenwood and Steven Culp respectively), debating the best course of action to
take, it frequently appears that there’s this eavesdropper present who is
getting far more attention and input than he would warrant. Using O’Donnell as
an audience surrogate is understandable, and there are times when Costner
blends into the background, but it’s a problem that his he is the recognisable
star trying to wrestle attention from the two character actors who are the real
centre of attention and decision making. We shouldn’t be waiting on what
O’Donnell says next, but the film’s point of view asks us to do that.
Costner
reunites with the above-average journeyman director Roger Donaldson; they had
worked together thirteen years earlier on the excellent political thriller No Way Out. Donaldson’s approach is an
unshowy one, concentrating on the character and story rather than visual
flourish. Notably his one flashy choice here doesn’t work very well; dipping
into black and white for “on the record” moments. It looks like someone has
turned the colour down on an impulse, rather than adding a sense of period
authenticity. The special effects aren’t so special either, with the CGI planes
never looking very real.
Where the
film succeeds is fortunately in the most important aspect; the creation of a
palpable sense of fear and escalation. Every time it appears that progress has
been made, something else occurs to set back efforts. The impetus from the
Joint Chiefs of Staff is to strike punitively first, most likely leading to
war, with only the Kennedys there to hold back the tide; JFK is viewed by them as
being weak, but rightly he has no stomach for a nuclear conflict. In a highly
effective tirade against an ignorant naval commander, Dylan Baker’s Robert
McNamara explains that the manoeuvring the President is engaged in is a whole
new language that the military are either willfully blind to or are too
ignorant to understand.
At each stage
there is opposition from some quarter, be it setting up a blockade rather than
striking Cuba, unsanctioned activities that could be seen as provocative
(nuclear and missile testing, sending a U2 into Soviet airspace, elevating the
threat level to Defcon 2, firing flares as a warning to a tanker that has run
the blockade), the concern over Khrushchev’s second message and whether it means
the deal offered in the first is voided, the instructions to pilots that they
are not to be shot down (and not to report any firing upon their planes). When
a plane is destroyed by a missile
events have reached the point where something like this was inevitable; the
only surprising part is that the crisis did not
spiral into all-out war.
If there’s a
problem with the depiction here, it’s that the lines being drawn are a little
too black-and-white. JFK virtually has a halo permanently fixed over his head,
so beatific is he. The filmmakers avoid any mention of Operation Moongoose (the
US’s campaign designed to topple Castro, which likely fuelled the decision to
place Soviet nuclear missiles there), which was coordinated by RFK. JFK
agonises over his every move as if he resides on a higher plane of moral
conscience than everyone else. Adlai Stevenson (a superb turn from Michael
Fairman) redeems himself from being written off as a Soviet appeaser (he
suggested offering the withdrawal of US missiles in Turkey in exchange for the
removal of the threat from Cuba) when he takes the hardline with a Soviet
representative at a crucial meeting; but he is there basically to show that the
President was taking a shrewd middle-line and did have a pair of balls.
It’s also
unfortunate that the dialogue is at times rather literal-minded. That it
doesn’t seem more so is down to the talents of Culp and Greenwood. The pep
talks given by O’Donnell occasionally border on the trite (his car journey with
RFK towards the end of the film is particularly guilty of this) and a growing
tendency towards sentimentalisation threatens to scupper the earlier good work
during the final stages. Kevin breaks down and cries on the stairs, and caps it
off with a facile family breakfast conversation.
David Self’s
career as a screenwriter has been fairly patchy (work includes the remakes of The Haunting, The Wolfman and Robocop)
so perhaps we’re fortunate that he steers the narrative so firmly for the most
part. Despite its flaws, this remains a smart political thriller with an
impeccable supporting cast.
***1/2