Thirteen Days, dir. Roger Donaldson

Note: At the end of the episode, Wiz states the next review will be All The King's Men directed by Robert Rossen. Unfortunately, Wiz has a cold and will not be recording an episode with Zero this week.

So, next week, Zero and Wiz will review The Manchurian Candidate directed by John Frankenheimer. Sorry about that.

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Thirteen Days

Historical films can be a pretty thorny premise to get right.

Either you can evoke the feeling of a person or time in history or emulate it so damn well it feels like you are in the room with them.

Thirteen Days, Roger Donaldson’s retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, is a film that I’m not sure what it’s trying to do.

If it’s trying to be an emulation of the time and the people involved, there are a few things that the film fumbled on.

Let’s start with the main characters:

• Bobby Kennedy, played by Steven Culp, is probably the best of the three who looks and sounds the part well enough, but he does slip in specific scenes.
• John F. Kennedy, played by Bruce Greenwood, looks the most like his real counterpart, but sounds nothing like him except when he’s upset.
• Kenneth O’Donnell, played by Kevin Costner, is the worst of the three…and of course he is the one you see the most. Not only does Costner not even look like him, he also doesn’t sound like him. In fact, Costner has one of the worst New England accents I’ve heard in a film.

If you were going the route of feeling like you are in the room with these titans of history, the illusion is pretty much shattered when you can look on screen and you have to remind yourself who these guys are supposed to play.

Now, if the film is trying to evoke a feeling of a person or place in time, the film takes a few stylistic choices that don’t work the way that the film intends:

• The film has scenes that utilize archival footage from the times. It’s effective at first, but then the film randomly implements it with no precise reason. There are scenes that are archival, but there are also that have actors playing the scene and neither seem to be of any importance.
• Another thing that doesn’t have a good reason to be there is the transition to black and white. There are scenes that randomly start in black and white then transition to color…and the reason Roger Donaldson gives is he wanted to create a historical feeling akin to photos from Life Magazine. This fails since it feels randomly placed.

These issues are further compounded by the slow, drawn out nature of the film. A slower pace could help with creating tension or developing characters to become more engrossed in the film…but the film does neither.

The first hour goes on for way too long being hung up on details that could have been cut for brevity or pace. The film does pick up towards the second half, but the need to hasten the film is still desired.

In honesty, Thirteen Days is also kind of a throwback for historical epics as well. The film is a clear good guy/bad guy dynamic with a political thriller feel…and as such the moral grays that you may be used to now is not present.

But if you look at what I’m saying and say “actually I kind of miss movies like this”, then you should give the film a try. But Thirteen Days, as accurate as it may be, is a film that could have actually benefited from some creative licensing.