Hey folks, Harry here... A loooooooong time ago... 2 years, maybe even 3 years ago I wrote a review for the script of this film.... Literally one of the best scripts I've read in the 5 years of doing this. I could not be more excited to see it coming soon to a theater near you and me. 13 DAYS had a fantastic script by David Self... and having seen the big long theatrical trailer in the theater tonight... reading this review... I'm very very excited. Well, I have to go... my flight is ready, and I must go....
Harry, you are a golden god.
I saw "Thirteen Days" last week at a press screening, and I waited through the weekend to get my thoughts together. They won't open the film in my market until Dec. 20, but I figure it will be in the NY/LA/CHI areas this Wednesday, just to tick people off in the rest of the country. Jerks.
The thing that struck me most about "Thirteen Days" is the realism of the thing. That's not to say there weren't a few bits of rhetorical nonsense, a few tweaks designed to pull the subconscious into the movie. (Filmmakers are now fined if they don't have an obligatory number of emotional tweaks in their films, like football teams who commit unnecessary roughness.) The movie opens with this "mushroom cloud montage," just so you don't forget what the Cuban Missile Crisis was all about (duh), and some of the "inner sanctum" Oval Office discussions are filmed in black-and-white, as well as some of the U2 spy plane moments. Why was this done? To tickle the subconscious (if it's successful; otherwise, it's distracting, and at times I was distracted).
HOWEVER, the rest of the film, the meat, reeks of authenticity. For about two hours, I watched some of the most expertly crafted filmmaking I've ever seen. I mean, the acting was superb, and the story was compelling (no danger of spoilers talking about a period piece like this, right?), but the devil was really in the details. Not just set pieces and costumes (which are dead on), but one of the smoothest editing jobs I've seen all year. In my opinion, film editors should receive a larger Oscar than the actors. With so many characters making so many important decisions, it would have been easy to lose the audience in a mess of nonsense scene changes, but the flow from scene to scene wasn't just flawless; it was appropriate.
One note on the set pieces: I was glad to see that the Oval Office didn't look like the Martha Stewart Autumn Collection you see on "The West Wing." This was a tall, stark, white room where JFK made powerful decisions that would save or destroy his nation.
My highest compliment would have to be that this is one of those films where you forget you're watching a film... well, at least until the last five minutes. Once the key decisions are made, the film sort of peters out into a slow-motion puffiness. But up until and including Robert Kennedy's pivotal discussion with the Russian Embassy director, the events are 100% compelling.
If this film is successful, it will be because people WANT it to be successful. People still want to see JFK as the ultimate statesman, the hero of the Cold War and a civil rights leader and a man of action, and this film delivers. The masterstroke is that not one of Jack's flaws is covered up. I don't mean any of that Marilyn crap; I'm talking about what made him tick as a president, what drove his doubts and his dreams. (Crap, I sounds like a therapist.) He was genuinely scared he might screw up, and that's what kept him from making big mistakes. Some of his cabinet members saw the successful resolution of the Crisis as a political homerun, right in time for reelection, but JFK knew what was truly at stake.
According to the movie, Kennedy's greatest strength was his ability to surround himself with good people who he could trust. Once I was out of the theater, I realized how little screen time Kennedy's character actually got, but while I was there, he was always in my mind. That's because he's in the mind of every other character, a collection of generals and politicians always asking themselves, "What will Jack do now?" It was a good idea to have Kevin Costner's character be the center of the film, but even he isn't always the focus. It shifts flawlessly (again that word to describe the film's flow) from one POV to the next, and always with clear intent. And in the center is JFK, his brother Robert, and Costner as the political adviser, this sort of holy trinity calling all the shots.
Bruce Greenwood plays JFK, and I couldn't place him as the bad guy from "Double Jeopardy." Good thing, too. A guy would have enough trouble trying to emulate Jack without being dragged down by such a depressingly thin role as his "Jeopardy" villain. As it was, I was completely convinced that I was watching Kennedy. I mean, no, he didn't look like Kennedy when I looked right at him, but when I saw him in the context of a White House filled with decision makers, when I saw him out the corner of my eye, he made his presence known. That's such a cool thing for an actor to pull off. Costner is a good moral compass for the story, but the story is compelling enough without that compass. We don't need pictures of Costner looking on stoically as his son plays football to remind us what a tragedy war is. That's what the mushroom clouds are for.
My hat's seriously off to Steven Culp, who plays Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General in Kennedy's administration. Culp is one of those elements in the film that infuses the entire production with a sinus-clearing dose of realism. He just looks so much like Bobby that it's sometimes annoying how unlike Kennedy that Greenwood looks. Why couldn't they ace Jack's look like they aced Bobby's?
Look at me here, calling them Jack and Bobby, like I'm a big Kennedy fan. I'm actually a die-hard Republican, and I always roll my eyes when someone tells me what a big man JFK was. The truth is, he really was a great president. Not that the film "JFK" tries to convince us much; it's too subjective. No, the awesome thing about "Thirteen Days" is how it illuminates Kennedy by focusing the spotlight on the Crisis itself. If this film is to be believed, Kennedy spent thirteen days in 1962 saving the East Coast from nuclear annihilation. That's good filmmaking, folks.
On a related note, I hate hate hate hate what the movie "Platoon" stands for, the self-righteous leftist view of Vietnam that seems to be all anyone can think of when they hear that country's name, but I'd be an idiot if I didn't acknowledge "Platoon" for the masterpiece it is. "The Contender," on the other hand, is a hour-and-a-half of banner waving, but I can watch "Platoon" three times in a row. "JFK" shoves an agenda down our throats; "Platoon" tells a story and leaves the viewer's brain to make the logical next steps. The director of "Thirteen Steps," Roger Donaldson, really accomplished something here. He's had what I consider a dubious career ("Dante's Peak," "The Getaway" remake, "Species"), but maybe all he needed was a good script and good production ideas from Costner, someone who's had plenty of mistakes to learn from.
I haven't said much about the plot of "Thirteen Days" because you already know the plot, and also because the story has nothing to do with the plot. The story is a political thriller of epic proportions, told within only a dozen rooms in the White House. By giving only the essential details, and by nailing those details with eerie accuracy, the film give us credit as an audience for understanding the importance of these subtle moments.
Bottom line: I'm going to stand in line when "Thirteen Days" hits the screen in December, I'm going to buy a ticket and watch this again. I've got a couple of favorite scenes in mind that I can't live without seeing again. That rocks my world! And oh yeah, for all you military gurus, "Thirteen Days" has magnificent airplane scenes, all the angles, all the rockets, compelling special effects and explosions right in the middle of an intellectual political thriller. Hey, I like what I like.
Call me Ambassador de Sadesky
(P.S. No, I'm not a studio insider trying to push the film. Don't blame me for being able to punctuate sentences correctly and using big words. That doesn't mean I can't be a big Harry fan.)
