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Show 1 Pere assttea WASATCH COUNTY COURIER JANUARY 24, 2001 MOVIE B3 oe a Mater fom the Lis . | a ami-b pm REVIEW In the ¢corinne of Men Review by Paul Swenson -— hirteen Days, a film about the ORE Mis Bhs saws RAE STARS DIRECTED:-BY ROGER DONALDSON. WRITTEN BY ERNEST R. MAY AND PHILIP D. ZELIKOW._ STARRING KEVIN COSTNER, BRUCE -GREENWOOD, STEVEN CULP, HENRY STROZIER, DYLAN BAKER, MICHAEL FAIRMAN, LUCINDA JENNEY, KEVIN CONWAY, OLEK KRUPA AND LEN CARIOU. Nit 2 ameter st! *K*&* 1962 Cuban missile crisis, is a ~ man’s movie. Not because it bristies with macho sensibility (it doesn’t, necessarily, although many ofits mil- itary cha racters are infected with the virus, bringing them in conflict with the less-hawkish because the Kennedys) people who —but managed the Cold War were inevitably male. Jackie Kennedy (Stephanie Romanov) — wearing a pair of tight slacks — passes through a corridor adjoining the Oval Office in an early scene, to argue with Kenny O’Donnell (Kevin Costner), a presidential aide, - about (what else) the. out of the TV Movie of the Week doldrums. (This material was first treated on television in 1974 with William Devane as JFK and Martin Sheen as RFK.) Among the flurry of new faces,. Dylan Baker as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara -Stroizer as Secretary names. friends Culp’s Bobby The decision of Director Roger Donaldson and screenwriters Ernest May and Philip Zelikow to tune the Books€ Cards Unique Gift Items whole show through the conscious- _ness of the obscure Kenny O’Donnell Special Orders — takes what could have been a foolish risk and turns it into a carefully craft- . ed success. Despite the fact he was a member of the Kennedys’ Book Searches — so-called “Trish Mafia,” all of whom knew both JFK and RFK long before they assumed power, O’Donnell draws a_ Join iis fora special reading with KARL HICKEN : Whar nuiehhomoed book b tore Located right in the heart of Heber Valley! Thursday, January 18, 7:00 pm DR. JAMES SHAW “A Store With Saturday, January 20, 1:00 pm ing recent performance, he acts as a foil and a prod for the president and — 103 East Main € Midway, Utah « Monday-Saturday, wile occa~ humor. Book Sense.” 435-657-BOOK ~- author of Jack & Jill, Why They Kill: Saving Our Children, Saving Ourselves may be his most relaxed and convincleavens the proceedings sional _ Coffee S Teas | gathering place blank with some historians who say he played only a peripheral part in the crisis. Yet Costner seizes the role (including the Boston accent), and underplays it slightly to good effect. In what 10 am—7 pm “7 Cousidefing” ‘that’ Costner’s of - her | career has taken a down- * turn with a series House party guest list. Later, Lucinda Jenney | as O’Donnell’s wife, Helen, is allowed a couple. of sympathetic scenes, and a female White House | telephone operator with and - Kennedy also sends the sort of confi-. dent vibe that feels like the real thing. froma White (unidentified) Henry. Rusk are almost dead ringers for the historical figures, fact-that he’s: strickem 4 the and of State Dean C Thirteen ‘fae © of bad scripts and uneven perform-. ances, it’s ironic ’ that he gets back "on track in this low- ' Steven Culp as Bobby Kennedy, Bruce key part - supporting under a Greenwood as JFK and Kevin Costner as Donaldson’ s taut tart tongue rips off a Kenny Donnell i in Thirteen Days. direction, especialzinger. But that’s pretty much it; we ~ ly since their last tour of duty togethspend the rest of: the 2-hour-and-15- er was the overwrought No Way Out minute-movie in the company of (1987). men——closeted with each other and a ~ Bruce Greenwood, who lacks the brisk and boyish smile of JFK, but has potential nuclear. holocaust. Nikita Kruschchev’s attempt to. the bearing and braininess to pull off the illusion, digs deep for this performquietly stock Cuba with dozens of medium-range _ ballistic. missiles, -ance and finds Kennedy’s courage in ‘aimed at the United States, is what resisting the Soviets and the Pentagon, made the Cold War suddenly hot for both of whom thought they could | two weeks in October, 1962. The cristeamroller him. sis involved much agonizing and With Soviet ships steaming toward moralizing, microscopic examination of high-altitude photographs taken by U-2 spy planes, long-distance guesswork, back-door diplomacy including an American journalist's meeting with, Soviet ambassador Andrei Gromyko (Olek Krupa), and the unavoidable clash between presidential caution and.a_ headstrong Pentagon, certain that Eee Orn equals weakness. This is the kind of picture i in which men in suits and men in uniform stand around posturing with each other, quickly and conveniently identified by on-screen titles, reversed out of the action. If that doesn’t sound exactly enthralling, be aware that that the level of acting in the picture — most of it by virtual unknowns, including Bruce Greenwood as John FE Kennedy and Steven Culp as Bobby Kennedy — lifts the entire enterprise the naval blockade that the U.S. has erected around Cuba, and the military brass pushing Kennedy not to relinquish the advantage of first-strike capability, the president acts on a Kruschchev commufiqué that appears to offer a compromise that will end the crisis. The ships turn back and the Soviets agree to retract the missiles in exchange for an American promise to dump some outdated ICBMs in Turkey. One of Donaldson’s few missteps is a post-mortem in the Rose Garden. where the Kennedys and O’Donnell toss a football around them and exchange a bit of faise bonhomie and bravado. The scene begins to feel (uncomfortably) as if it were lifted from. a buddy movie — the three good guys who made the world sit up and take notice. 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