Generally very good, but "kennedy-friendly", that is, JFK comes out the consumate crisis-manager, when in reality nobody was in control of events (JFK and Khrushchev truly were "sleepwalking through history").
To be fair to the makers of the film, the script is based on available documents in 1974. Nowadays, we know that Kennedy explicitly traded existing US bases in Turkey for the USSR bases in Cuba -- something that was denied for years -- and that the Russians had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba to defend against invasion; which would have immediately turned into a direct confrontation into the nuclear realm. In reality, the Cuban Missile Crisis seems to have been "won" (narrowly) by the Soviets -- although Khrushchev's career didn't survive it (but Castro's certainly did :-)
Wonderful work by William Devane as JFK (Martin Sheen as RFK has a little more trouble with the accent, but the two of them portray the personalities of the two men very well), but perhaps the best portrayal of all is Howard da Silva as Nikita Khrushchev. Very nice casting choices (and performances) for pretty much every player. Long, but thorough.
To be fair to the makers of the film, the script is based on available documents in 1974. Nowadays, we know that Kennedy explicitly traded existing US bases in Turkey for the USSR bases in Cuba -- something that was denied for years -- and that the Russians had tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba to defend against invasion; which would have immediately turned into a direct confrontation into the nuclear realm. In reality, the Cuban Missile Crisis seems to have been "won" (narrowly) by the Soviets -- although Khrushchev's career didn't survive it (but Castro's certainly did :-)
Wonderful work by William Devane as JFK (Martin Sheen as RFK has a little more trouble with the accent, but the two of them portray the personalities of the two men very well), but perhaps the best portrayal of all is Howard da Silva as Nikita Khrushchev. Very nice casting choices (and performances) for pretty much every player. Long, but thorough.