Stylish but barely mediocre overall

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

One of the more difficult tasks when filming a subject whose outcome is already known is making it believable and exciting...Ron Howard did it in "Apollo 13", and this movie accomplishes the same goal...the story never really stops, with fast-moving discussions and back-and-forth scenes between America and the USSR...the producers excelled at presenting an all-star cast for this movie, with Martin Sheen an eerie choice as Bobby Kennedy...who knew the West Wing was in his future...an intriguing element to this topic is watching this version, and then viewing "Thirteen Days"...the differences are striking, with some characters in either film not showing up in the other...and you won't seen LBJ at all in "Missiles"...while only in two or three scenes in "Thirteen Days"...an amazing occurrence when you consider that most of the documents and info on the Cuban missile crisis have been declassified...this movie is available on video...I purchased it online...so get it and enjoy a look back at how close we really came...

This really impressed me when first I viewed it in '74. The real standout was William Devane as JFK. One of the most realistic pieces of casting and portrayls I've seen! Only on the close ups could you tell that it was Devane. His accent and demeanour were perfection. In other words he was JFK! Everyone else was superb as was the story, camera work, direction etc. The casting was brilliant and more than that REAL! This was truly a winner from start to finish.

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.

Overall, an excellent made for TV movie with William Devane simply being the best actor who has yet played JFK. He does the accent JUST right without overdoing it -- unlike future JFK Martin Sheen, who hams it up as RFK here. His accent (as it was in KENNEDY) is overdone with, uh, a lot of, uh, this, uh, sort of thaaaaang (I am, uh, speaking like, uh, a Kennedy). Other than that, a really well-made film. Can't wait to see 13 DAYS!