Grade: C

Verdict: Count your lucky stars the Cuban missile crisis didn't last 21 days.

Details: Starring Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood and Steven Culp. Directed by Roger Donaldson. Rated PG-13 for brief strong profanity. Two hours, 20 minutes.

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Review: “Thirteen Days” only seems to last that long.

A respectable but rather plodding account of the 13 days in October 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union played you-blink-first with the threat of nuclear war, the movie takes us back to a time when the Kennedys proved for all the world to see that they had the right stuff.

The Soviets had sworn publicly and privately that they would not place offensive weapons in Cuba. An American flyover, however, reveals that 32 nuclear missiles are nestled on Castro's turf. Missiles that, within five minutes, could kill 80 million people.

The film chronicles the byzantine maneuvers that took place as President Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood) and his attorney general brother, Bobby (Steven Culp), face trouble on two different fronts. There's Khrushchev, of course, staying incommunicado in the Kremlin. But almost as problematical are the hawks in the military who see this confrontation as a golden opportunity to blow things up. Along with their boys-and-their-toys mentality, they have an innate distrust of the Kennedy boys with their Harvard degrees and upper-crust connections. “You're in a pretty bad fix,” says veteran cold warrior, Gen. Curtis LeMay (Kevin Conway). “In case you haven't noticed,” JFK replies evenly, “you're in it with me.”

The movie's name star is Kevin Costner. He plays the pivotal, though essentially supporting role, of Kenny O'Donnell, an old college pal of the Kennedys. O'Donnell's official title is special adviser to the president. What that apparently means is that he's got one of those red phones at his house and he can play around with the president's breakfast.

How much O'Donnell actually had to do with the crisis is questionable; he's not on any of the strategy tapes. But in narrative terms, he's indispensable to “Thirteen Days.” He provides our entree to what's going on behind closed doors — whether it's hanging out in the background as the chiefs of staff debate or kicking around ideas alone with the Kennedys.

To his credit, Costner, who also produced, clearly wants this movie to be about the Kennedys. But his actor's ego can't quite stay completely dormant. First we're distracted by his “pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd” accent (he sounds like a bad Kennedy impersonator in the '60s).

Then there are some idiotic home scenes with his family that are borderline embarrassing. (One son asks earnestly, “Is everything going to be OK, Dad?”) Finally, it dawns on you that if director Roger Donaldson had cut all the reaction shots of Kenny looking pensive, Kenny looking admiring, Kenny looking supportive, Kenny looking worried, Kenny making tension-relieving jokes, the movie would probably be a much-needed 20 minutes shorter.

Another drawback is David Self's script. He's tackled a big crisis by cutting it into bite-size crises. A good idea in theory, in practice the movie begins to feel forced and repetitive. Will the U.S. pilots manage to fly over Cuba without getting shot down and thereby putting the president in an awkward position? Will the so-called quarantine work? Will JFK and Bobby find a way to keep the hawks under control? Will a humane intellectual like Adlai Stevenson be able to rail and shout at the Soviet Union and act like a man at United Nations proceedings?

Granted, the mini-crises can be entertaining. What isn't so entertaining is the jargon-laden script. During the strategy sessions, it's hard to differentiate Dean Rusk from Dean Acheson, Robert McNamara from McGeorge Bundy. LeMay stands out because he's played with scenery-chewing aplomb by Conway. So does the guy playing Stevenson — because he's bald. Eventually, your mind begins to wander during these slice-of-history talkfests. You find yourself wondering how much Greenwood and Culp — both fine actors — really look like their assigned Kennedy; how all this would've made a heck of a TV movie, except it's already been a TV movie — 1974's “The Missiles of October.” You may even find yourself wondering when Costner became so stolid, so humorless? How did the cocky cowboy of “Silverado” and the goofy catcher from “Bull Durham,” and the cockeyed dreamer from “Field of Dreams” become this gray wash of a star, known more for his ego than his astonishing energy and inventiveness?

“Thirteen Days” isn't a total waste of time. The material has intrinsic interest and it's good to be reminded that Kennedys were about more than who slept with Marilyn Monroe. But it's never as fully engaging as you might hope. Still, if you make it to the end, you'll leave the theater knowing what “Castro” spelled backward is.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution