Thirteen Days (DVD)

That was my first thought as I sought to pull myself together enough to deal with the practicalities. But it was too late. I didn't catch his name. It seemed like a shame because I think I'll be seeing him again. Fortunately these days we have the internet and it only took a few moments to whip on line and find it: Steven Culp I don't know quite what intrigued me about actor Steven Culp. He sort of had a Hugh Grant-ness about him with a quivering lip and an incredible boyishness that made him seem an unlikely man to have stood between us and nuclear war. But as the film went on he started to suggest a bit of hidden strength and a sense that we ...  Read the complete review

Tense political thrillers are a special favourite of mine and as far as tense political thrillers go, Thirteen Days certainly does go. Of course, it does have a wonderfully gripping story to rely on for that magic, and the fact that it's all true makes things even better. Thirteen Days tells the story of one of the scariest incidents of the Cold War period, that chilling time between the end of World War II and the more enlightened post-Glasnost era. It was a gripping, epic time, smack bang in the middle of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Presidency in the United States. It is set in the tail end of 1962, almost two years into the Presidency, at a ...  Read the complete review

13 Days. Owing to the tragic events in the US over the past few weeks, there's been a rise in the interest in the capabilities and strengths of the American leadership. This isn't American bashing by any stretch - I've lived and worked over there for a bit and they're good people - even the Californians - but I don't think that many people will dispute the fact that George 'Billy-Bob' Bush isn't by any stretch of the imagination one of the great American presidents. In his past, he spent the best part of 20 years drunk, there's strong evidence he was a cocaine addict and the only job he's had was as a (figurehead) ...  Read the complete review

Having heard various bits and pieces about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but never the full story, this film looked like an ideal way to find out the true story. I'm sure one or two things were added for dramatic effect but the drama and tension throughout the film impressed me. The director was able to re-create what must have been very tense meetings and political exchanges and make them seem realistic. The film initially depicts the closeness of the Kennedy's with their chief advisor (played by Kevin Costner). This becomes pivotal later in the movie when JFK is bombarded with opinion after opinion from his various military and political departments - ...  Read the complete review

In the sixties or seventies, ‘Thirteen Days’ may have seemed terribly poignant, an illustration of the indomitable Kennedy brothers triumphing over forces of conservatism without and within to save the world from a tragic end. Now, knowing that JFK probably did deals with the Mob to win the 1960 presidential election, that he was pathologically unfaithful, vain, and insincere, and that brother Bobby wasn’t much better on any front, the spectacle of the Kennedys sweeping around the White House being all heroic doesn’t really appeal, at least not to me. If you’re too young to remember or haven’t been told, the Cuban Missiles ...  Read the complete review