Critique: Thirteen Days is a well acted, well made, engaging and entertaining film. It isn't that entertaining, but is entertaining enough to enjoy and thus to recommend. Although we know what is going to happen, the film is still thrilling. The cinematography presents some qualitiy work, although the score is a bit cliched.
Bruce Greenwood steals the show as JFK, but Culp and Costner are also very good. Costner caught flack from some reviewers for having an exaggerated Boston accent. I disagree though, I think his accent is just fine, and he keeps it up the whole film. The Boston accent by nature is a little different, and might sound awkward to the average person. Although I'm not expert on the accent, I've come to understand this latter fact, and I think critics mistook the Boston accent for Costner doing a bad job. Greenwood and Culp have Boston accents too, but go easy on it for better or for worse. Roger Donaldson's direction is very stylish and interesting.
Thirteen Days sets out to recreate the Cuban Missile Crisis with flair, and to let the audience have a good time. It was suspenseful, but still fun. The characters were three dimensional, and the whole film was polished. What makes it to me only a 3 star film is that it was not that polished, or that fun, even though it was still polished enough, and entertaining enough.
review by supernothingman |
