Dressing Down the Kennedy Mythos.

• Author: Atkinson, Michael

Kennedy leftism--the shearings of principles moussed with convenience and wealth --is Hollywood's favorite sort. It's so difficult, after all, to earn millions creating entertainment for the hoi polloi and at the same time muster actionable concern for the social rights of those same poor from the comfort of your private Lear. So, we get Primary Colors, whose flip betrayal of its depiction of campaign skullduggery ends in an earnest, we're-gonna-make-history blather; The Patriot's equation of pacifism with flag-waving slaughter; The Contender's preposterously hyper-left pronouncements mated to the amused glorification of federal double-dealing.

Bill Clinton made it possible for Hollywood to suddenly use "the President" as a robust daddy and reliable action hero once again (from Air Force One to The West Wing). That's fitting, since he has always seemed more Beverly Hills than Capitol Hill. Clinton's studly model was, of course, JFK himself, whose experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis might be the only unambiguously righteous trial any prez has endured since Roosevelt. In fact, almost every chief executive officer since JFK has pined for just such a clear-cut test so as to solidify his own legend.

Roger Donaldson's ennobled melodrama 13 Days shakes in its boots for President Kennedy's Cuban Missile Crisis, but it's smart enough to keep the Camelot trumpet-blowing to a minimum.

After all, what was most far-fetched about Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) wasn't the conspiracy hugger-mugger but the very idea that Kennedy was America's blessed liberal savior taken from us in a time of great need. Kevin Costner's teary climactic harangue to that effect only made the film's raucous speculations seem naive. Here, in 13 Days, is Costner again as Camelot's own Lancelot escorting his soon-to-be martyred Arthur through the face-off against the Mordred of Soviet aggression. Indeed, Costner's refreshingly scabrous rendering of Presidential aide Kenneth O'Donnell makes him more like JFK's bodyguard, running interference and strong-arming the bureaucrats.

Kennedy, as he's played by Bruce Greenwood, is a thoughtful yet somehow fragile figure; he needs buffers, handlers, and intermediaries like a turtle needs a shell.

The film's primary tension lies in the question of whether or not the unseasoned Jack is up to the challenge. The portrait of a young, sweet-looking college boy with a pretty wife facing the Soviets down and nervily avoiding nuclear war gave the...