User Rating 
To be honest, Kevin Costner's career has drifted somewhat from the straight and narrow. Self-important, overblown flops like "The Postman" have seen his star turn from bright and shining to a murky shade of puce.
Which is why it's a good decision on his part to return to something just a little more hard-edged and low-key, such as the political thriller "Thirteen Days". Coster is Kenny O'Donnell, JFK's closest adviser, who finds himself caught in the middle of the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Yawn, you might say? Wasn't that blown out of all proportion? Well, not really says this movie, as we see the White House turn into a hotbed of political manoeuvrings that are critical to the aversion of the Third World War.
Okay, so the film makers may well have taken some dramatic licence, but provided you can get over Costner's exaggerated Boston twang (which thankfully fades about a quarter of an hour in), "Thirteen Days" remains an enthralling and educating film.
Combining healthy doses of information and drama, as well as first-class performances from Greenwood and Culp who, as the Kennedys, don't deliver caricatures but imbue the siblings with a life of their own. This probably won't appeal to the 'yoof' looking for a cool Saturday night flick, but for everyone else, you could do worse than immerse yourself in this story.
Read the Newsnight Review.
