Thirteen Days (2000) October 1962 - Forty five US Jupiter missiles went on line in Italy and Turkey, each one capable of hitting Moscow with a thermonuclear device 100 times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb. In response, Nikita Khruhschev and the Soviet leadership decided to position intermediate and medium range WMD's of their own upon the launch pad of Cuba. When US spyplanes uncovered the plot, the superpowers drifted towards the fog of war, in which millions could die in a matter of minutes. The following thirteen days brought the world closer to an irradiated holocaust than it ever has been before or since. Luckily, Kevin Costner came to the rescue, or so it would seem in the docu-drama Thirteen DaysThirteen Days. Playing President John F. Kennedy's factual special assistant Kenneth O'Donnell, Costner played the glue that held the two Kennedy brothers together, and oversaw their wise and calculated solution to the escalating crisis. In reality, O'Donnell was present at some of the critical meetings. But his role, and his association with JFK and RFK during the thirteen days in question, was minimal at best. Far greater participation came from White House Counsel Ted Sorenson and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, both of whom appear as mere backrops in the film. Also missing, aside from Costner's voice coach (Costner should have won a Razzie for the worst New England accent ever), is any viable background to the Soviet motive for deployment. This omission may have been in the interest of simplifying an already complicated chain of events. More than likely, producers may have minimized the role of the Europe-based Jupiters in order to portray Jack and Robert as the flawless icons of liberal idealism. Unfortunately, the general public to this day fails to remember the historical John F. Kennedy, one of the most hawkish presidents ever to grace the chair of commander in chief. Elected by appearing tougher on communism than the incumbant Dwight Eisenhower or Vice President Dick Nixon, JFK christened his presidency with a botched invasion of Cuba, followed up with an escalation of US presence in Vietnam, and ushered in a 150% increase in the US nuclear arsenal and an 800% increase in Special Forces manpower. Yet Thirteen Days does have great merit. Non-O'Donnell dialogue is close to verbatim. Kennedy often used recording devices for the purposes of transcription (a practice Richard Nixon later adopted, to his regret). These transcripts, plus heavy use of Robert Kennedy's eponymous memoir of the event, bring exceptional accuracy to the main points of debate. The crisis was as dangerous and deadly as the film portrays, because the USSR was also deploying nuclear subs, battalions of artillery, nuclear bombers, fighter aircraft, and tens of thousands of infantry to Cuba. Were it not for Adlai Stevenson's brilliant performance at the UN Security Council, the patience and ingenuity of the Kennedy brothers (skills they learned from their earlier failures regarding Cuba), and the ability of Khrushchev to accept a viable diplomatic resolution, the world we inherited may have been far more radioactive than it is today. Story: A Bridge Too Far (1977) Based on Cornelius Ryan's informative though heavily anecdotal book of the same name, A_Bridge Too_Far portrays Operation:Market-Garden, the September 1944 Allied attempt to capture vital bridges deep inside Nazi occupied Holland. Much like the failed attack, the film is plagued from the beginning. Martial music, needless subplots, and an excessively famous cast are inappropriate and distracting. Poor continuity and uninspired acting further erode the production. Nonetheless, Bridge is largely accurate and an invaluable lesson in modern warfare, aptly demonstrating the monumental complexity of combat. Hastily assembled, the actual Market-Garden operation lacked adequate intelligence, cohesion, and leadership. Inclement weather, obstructed roads, insufficient weaponry, and broken communications added to the debacle, making all the courage in the world count for little. This tragic picture becomes considerably clearer when the film is viewed with a battle map in hand. Despite the movie’s impressive portrayal and blockbuster lineup (Lawrence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, Gene Hackman, James Caan, etc.) Bridge fared poorly at the box office. Evidently, a detailed account of a military catastrophe held minimal appeal for a post-Vietnam audience. Story: Glory (1989) While on a business trip in Boston, movie producer Freddie Fields walked past a modest bronze monument standing in the Commons. Examining its features, he learned of a regiment once heralded for its tremendous sacrifices in a Civil War battle. Stunned by his own ignorance, and the general unawareness of African Americans in the Union Army, he resolved to resurrect the honor of the "54th Massachussets Colored Regiment" and its commander Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Years later, thanks to the eager assistance of marquis Hollywood stars and hundreds of unknown reenactors, "Glory" hit the screen to the accolades of historians and viewers alike. Princeton scholar James McPherson called its rendition of the 1863 attack on Fort Wagner the most realistic portrayal of Civil War combat ever put on film. Along with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Denzel Washington), the work also rightfully won Oscars for Cinematography and Sound. Honestly portrayed were the struggles against unequal pay, the government's unwillingness to use blacks in combat roles, and Shaw's own words of abolitionist hope and personal trepidation. To be sure, there are several innaccuracies. For example, the 54th was not the first black regiment formed in the Union, nor the first to see combat. Except for Shaw, all soldiers in the regiment are fictional, and the vast majority of the true 54th were freemen born in the North. The tales of poor equipment, whipping of deserters, and a revival meeting before the assault on Wagner are all fabricated. The 54th did lead the fateful attack on the Confederate battery, with nine white regiments close behind, two of which suffered greater casualties. Despite its shortfalls, the film's overall quality in writing, set design, and ambience, plus its vivid portrayal of a national divide (both then and now), ranks it among the best historical dramas ever produced. Story: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) The Siam-Burma rail line, though just 250 miles long, ran across mountains, swamps, and jungles, teaming with snakes, tigers, bats, leeches, flesh-eating bacteria, swarms of insects, and plagues of cholera. Upon this seething stage unfolds one of the most beloved and successful war films of all time, albeit a poor picture of actual conditions. In reality, British and other POW’s built not one but six hundred wooden bridges along the rail network. Evidently, no bridges were destroyed by dynamite during the course of the war. The actual River Kwai runs through a rather flat area, instead of the mountainous area depicted (the movie was filmed in Sri Lanka). Death rates, privations, and atrocities were much more severe, and Japanese officers were rarely if ever as dimwitted as portrayed. However, just as shown, the Japanese routinely withheld International Red Cross packages, forced officers to perform manual labor, and regarded prisoners as cowards (Imperial Japan was not a signatory of the 1929 Geneva Convention on POW Protocol). As muddled as it may have been historically, triumphant and tragic Bridge cleaned up at the Oscars, taking seven statues, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness as Col. Nicholson. Story:
The pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid echoes that of Sean Connery and Michael Caine in The Man Who Would be King. Both instances were the first time the actors worked together. Both developed unexpected and instant on-screen chemistry. Both were the start of lifelong friendships. And both created blockbuster films. Considering the brilliant blend of action, camera, comedy, score, and dialogue, it is difficult to chastise Butch Cassidy for inaccuracies. The real Hole-in-the-Wall gang numbered nearly a hundred rather than a dozen. Success in thievery (mostly trains) involved brutality rather than charm. The dreaded trip to Bolivia actually included stints in Peru, Argentina, and elsewhere, and the final shootout in Bolivia in 1909 lasted hours rather than minutes. Nonetheless, the demise of Robert Parker (a.k.a. Butch Cassidy) and Harry Langbaugh (a.k.a. Sundance) appears on screen as a compelling metaphor. Regardless how much the dashing and eccentric legends run and hide, they cannot escape the faceless, relentless march of the methodical future. Story:
Jess Birdwell (Gary Cooper) and his family are pacifists in 1862 Indiana, living uneasily within reach of Civil War fighting. Amidst trivial diversions and time-killing sub-plots, the Birdwells eventually face a crushing ultimatum; to defend their home or to defend their gentle Quaker faith. Most characters sidestep this winless test, save for young Josh Birdwell (played brilliantly by Anthony Perkins), who decides to shoot back. In one of the most moving scenes in cinema, a young man kills to save his family, believing that in doing so, he has surrendered his own chance for salvation. Despite Perkins’ greatness, Friendly Persuasion is a nauseatingly weak Eisenhower-era sugarthon. Billed as a war flick, it is more an aimless fluff piece on cartoonish characters who feign struggle with worldly temptations, such as the sinful pursuits of surrey racing and the county fair. Story:
Truth be told, even the most paranoid conspiracy theorists had a hard time with Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner). For years, the spotlight-hungry New Orleans District Attorney blamed anyone and everyone for the assassination of Jack Kennedy – CIA, FBI, LBJ, the Pentagon, communists, fascists, Cuban leftists and rightists, thugs, gangsters, homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites, and the media. In contrast, the film depicts Garrison as one sane voice in a sea of deceit, begging the nation to open its eyes to the obvious, that Kennedy was killed for planning a Vietnam pullout. Director Oliver Stone (himself a veteran) is unquestionably brilliant with his trademark use of slow motion flashbacks, shot variation, and emotionally charged issues. But he’s not big on the basics. Senator Kennedy won the presidency by presenting incumbent Eisenhower as “soft on Vietnam.” President Kennedy then proceeded to initiate the largest military buildup in American peacetime history. At the time of the assassination, U.S. involvement in Indochina was modest (15,000 troops) but hardly perceived as unmanageable to JFK or to most of his advisors. On the plus side, the film JFK is great for playing “Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon.” Mr. Flashdance co-stars with about twenty tinsel town icons, making Oliver’s twist on history the Rosetta Stone for tracing the Hollow Man. Story:
At the time, it was one of the most hyped and expensive cinematic projects ever made. Based on Cornelius Ryan’s tight weave of D-Day eyewitness accounts, the film contained over forty international stars of the entertainment world, and premiered in both Europe and the United states with unmatched fanfare. But as History, The Longest Day falls short, demonstrating perfectly how a film can get most of the facts right, yet completely misfire on presenting the spirit of the time. Throughout, actors behave as if outcomes are predetermined - Allies are confident and chummy, Axis are workmanlike yet resigned. A viewer may get the feeling the Allies won purely because of their superior male bonding skills. There are other inaccuracies. Pegasus Bridge across the Orne Canal sports a hefty load of explosives on its belly. At the time of the battle, there were no such charges. One of the final scenes depicts a decisive Allied breakthrough via a detonated concrete wall on the Omaha beachhead. In truth, there was no such wall. Overall, factual details prevail, from to Pvt. John Steele (Red Buttons) hanging by his parachute on a Ste.-Mère-Eglise church steeple, to Col. Benjamin Vandervoort (John Wayne) smashing his ankle early in the conflict. Yet the film lacks passion, pain, and any true sense of carnage, thereby making one of the most pivotal military operations in modern history look like a giant game of paintball. Story:
From the late 1970’s onward, an increasing number of big suits and director chairs contained former film students nursed on stigma genres or former soldiers scarred by Vietnam. The result was a Hollywood flood tide of works about the war and its aftermath. Arguably, no Vietnam film ever received the hype of Platoon, heralded as the end-all be-all of American war epics, with Oliver Stone a modern director turned medieval doctor, offering America a hard dose of curative bloodletting. The story revolves around Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), a smarter than average grunt transported to the green mile of Indochina. Initially patriotic, he eventually realizes he simply wants to survive. How to survive is the question. Either he follows the way of battle hardened, old school, hard drinking killer Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), or the sincere, altruistic, pothead messiah Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe). In theory, Taylor and the audience are one. In practice, Taylor’s voice and behavior are distracting reminders of a far superior Sheen performance in Apocalypse Now. Rather than breaking new ground, Stone instead delivers the typical Vietnam trifecta - hellish firefights, heartbreaking soundtrack, and heaping helpings of human injustice. Granted, he presents these staples better than most any other director. In the end, Platoon appears to be less about America’s personal struggle with Vietnam, and more about Stone’s personal struggle with his father’s generation. Story:
The Outsiders reunite, minus Ralph Macchio. But instead of fighting society, Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell team up to fight the Red Menace. The story begins with the Soviet Union initiating an invasion of the U.S., logically enough, by way of a massive airborne assault upon a class 2-A high school in Colorado. A rat pack of town youngsters, labeling themselves “Wolverines,” subsequently engage in guerrilla warfare in an attempt to rid hearth and home of Communism. Just how and why a Russian Army would attack and be able to occupy all of North America is never really established. Nor is there any subsequent posits of “if Ivan is here, who’s minding the store back in Borschtland?” The film is still worth watching, at least as a time capsule to the age of Reagan. In 1984, much of the U.S. national attention, angst, and budget went to controlling the paper tiger known as the “Evil Empire,” and audiences deemed paranoid productions like Red Dawn, Amerika, and The Day After as wholly plausible. Also valuable is the movie’s less-obvious juxtaposition with the present. To fight an invading army, the young and heroic natives employ acts of terrorism. Story: |
