Intermission: 'Thirteen Days' recaptures tension of Cuban crisis

"Thirteen Days"

Directed by: Roger Donaldson

Starring: Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp

Rated: PG-13

For two weeks in the fall of 1963, the world came as close as it's ever come to utter annihilation. In the heat of the Cold War, the U.S. government discovered that the Soviet Union had installed medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles away, placing them in striking distance of some 80 million Americans.

At that distance, we would have around five minutes' warning. Luckily for me, a grade schooler at the time, I was pretty adept at the "duck and cover" drills we had been going through since kindergarten. (For more on duck and cover, see the brilliantly hilarious documentary, "The Atomic Cafe.")

Roger Donaldson's gripping account of the Cuban missile crisis, "Thirteen Days," is a taut drama that will keep history buffs, students of the political process and lovers of dramatic tension revved up for its entire two-hour-and-20-minute running time.

One caveat: If you're expecting a typical shoot-em-up, crawl-in-the-trenches, whiz-bang special effects war picture, you may be disappointed. More bullets fly and grenades explode in the first few minutes of something like "Saving Private Ryan" than in the entirety of "Thirteen Days."

Indeed, one of the ushers at the theater, when I asked if he'd seen the film, said, "No, but I hear it's pretty boring." All a matter of perspective, I suppose. We baby boomers who lived through these events will find it anything but boring.

Looking at Donaldson's career as a director, "Thirteen Days" is the high-water mark. His good stuff "No Way Out," "The Bounty," "Species" has been good, but his bad stuff "Dante's Peak," "Cocktail" could have sunk many a director's career.

Much like "Apollo 13," the conclusion here is foregone. It's the telling of the tale, though, that grips the audience so tightly. Donaldson has chosen an interesting format for the screenplay.

There are no cutaways to simultaneous action letting us know what the Soviets are going through on the other side of the world, not many subplots to distract us (although we do meet the family of one of the main characters) and precious few minor characters trying to cover too many bases. When the action shifts to warships and jet fighters, it's to further the story at hand, not take us on a side trip.

For the most part, we follow a group of three men, presidential adviser Ken O'Donnell (Kevin Costner), JFK (Bruce Greenwood), and brother Bobby (Steven Culp). Also on hand are the now familiar players in this most dangerous game: Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, who comes across a whole lot like Buck Turgidson in "Dr. Strangelove."

These military men are gung-ho to let the Commies have it, and after the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, they have come to see the Kennedys as somewhat soft. There are times in the film when Donaldson suggests that a military coup may have been in the offing, a matter that may or may not be true. In the context of this film, it works perfectly.

What's in the balance here is far more important than what was at stake at the Bay of Pigs. It is not hyperbole to say that, with the decisions to be made by these men under an unimaginable amount of duress and in a very brief time, the fate of mankind is truly at stake.

It stands to reason that if we attack Cuba and the missiles, the Soviets must retaliate. After that, the United States must strike again ... and so on and so forth and before long, the BIG one. LeMay, just like General Turgidson, admits there will be casualties, but it's a calculated risk he's willing to take.

Thankfully, President Kennedy and his group were able to see things a little more clearly. Kennedy realized that with the advent of nuclear weapons, the rules and consequences of war had been changed forever.

The solution put forward is to run a naval blockade of Cuba, meeting and turning away all ships bound for the island that are carrying weapons of war. A blockade in itself is an act of war, so the political minds decide to announce the exercise as a "quarantine." The final act is incredibly tense and no less affecting because we know the finale.

Whether the scenes and dialogue portrayed here are air-tight historical facts is a matter for scholars, but I suspect "Thirteen Days" falls closer to reality than something like Oliver Stone's "JFK" or other dramatic pieces based on historical circumstances.

One thing that is a matter of record, though, is Robert McNamara's stunning observation that has since become a part of the modern lexicon: "We went eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)