Thirteen Days

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Fascinating in its depiction of presidential leadership in action.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A terrifically engrossing war film in which not a single shot is fired, a movie about shaping events rather than being shaped by them.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A mesmerizingly suspenseful drama.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A big, square, rousing political thriller docudrama.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

An excellent movie about a real-life nail-biter, forcefully acted, true to its period and directed with clarity.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

One of the most exciting American movies about recent political history since, ironically, Oliver Stone's "JFK."

Newsweek David Ansen

Keeps you hanging on every twist and turn of its wilder-than-fiction plot.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It turns the nerve-fraying Cuban missile crisis into a big pop myth with the grip of a vise.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

A deeply involving and disturbing movie.

USA Today Mike Clark

Once this 2 1/4-hour slow-starter finally finds its rhythm, we're reminded of how gripping policy give-and-take around a long rectangular table can be.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Greenwood, whose range has carried him from the lonely widower of "The Sweet Hereafter" to the creepy husband of "Double Jeopardy," gives a star-making performance.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I call the movie a thriller, even though the outcome is known, because it plays like one: We may know that the world doesn't end, but the players in this drama don't, and it is easy to identify with them.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Plays like a very good TV movie. Short on visual flair and starpower, Thirteen Days is not the definitive story of the Cuban missile crisis, but it's an engrossing historical lesson nonetheless.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Even though the actors are good, their characters stay stock.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The subject is so gripping that you almost forgive the filmmakers for skewing their material in order to keep Costner's pretty face at the center of everything that happens.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Thoroughly gripping.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Dealing with all these crises and decisions gives Thirteen Days a surprising amount of tension and watchability for a story whose outcome we already know.

TNT RoughCut Andy Klein

Greenwood gives a nuanced performance that may be the film's best work, but at times his surface dissimilarities to JFK are jarring.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

A refreshing breakaway from both idolatry and cynicism.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

I much prefer the whacked-out, Dr. Strangelove-ish brand of political-apocalypse film to all this straitlaced you-are-there dramaturgy, which seems a throwback to the early sixties not only in time but in spirit. But what Thirteen Days sets out to do it does admirably.

Time Richard Schickel

The players don't particularly look like their historical models, but they make us feel their life-threatening pain and puzzlement.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A suspenseful breath of fresh air following on the heels of one of the dumbest Hollywood summers in recent memory.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Assiduous, temperate, and a lot more honest about government and politicians than any other Hollywood film of the last few decades, Thirteen Days is nevertheless too little, too late.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A tense and engrossing political thriller.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Reasonably intelligent, well-crafted and dramatically understated.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Like President Kennedy, director Donaldson (who made "No Way Out," another pretty good Washington-seat-of-power thriller) has found a perfect balance of often-opposing forces: between recorded history and the demands of plain old entertainment.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Kevin Costner is suitably flinty in 13 Days, a competent, by-the-numbers recreation of the events surrounding the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This thriller is a lot better than you might expect--especially for a Kevin Costner vehicle.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

The efficiency of his (Donaldson) direction renders the movie somewhat characterless, like a top-rank made-for-TV production.

Film.com Robert Horton

This overdone project dissipates its energy in strange ways (sudden shifts to black-and-white, as though hailing the spirit of Oliver Stone and that other Costner JFK movie), and makes you wish its makers had shown the same restraint the government did during the crisis.

Salon.com Michael Sragow

A thoroughly bland and mediocre movie about the Cuban missile crisis.