If you are avoiding Michael Bay’s new film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, because you think it will just be a military version of his horrible Transformers movies I’m glad to inform you that your fears are unwarranted. I have a unique opinion on Michael Bay as a director. Most people just hate him and his movies and although I can’t say that I love his movies I will say that he has made a few good movies. If I had to choose the best movie he has ever made I would say it is his second movie The Rock (1996). It was a well cast action movie that pretty much delivered on every level. Unfortunately most of Michael Bay’s movies are not of the same quality of The Rock and are usually too long and have way too much CGI. With 13 Hours I wasn’t sure what I was stepping into, but from the trailer I thought it at least had potential.
13 Hours starts out with former Navy SEAL Jack Silva (John Krasinski) arriving to a secret CIA compound in Libya. Through his character we are given a tour of the layout of the compound. Silva and the rest of the security team are there to provide security for high level CIA personnel. On September 11, 2012 the six members of the Annex Security Team were called on to fight a radical Libyan militia group who were attacking U.S. Ambassador J. Chris Stevens at a U.S. consulate in Benghazi one mile down the road. They respond and all hell just continues to break loose from there.
I enjoyed most of the performances in 13 Hours although I do have to say that John Krasinski does kind of stick out like a sore thumb. It isn’t really his fault though considering he has the unenviable task of shedding his distinctive character Jim which he played on the hit comedy TV show The Office. All the other members of the security team were played mostly by guys I didn’t recognize, but one of them was played by fellow Office alumni David Denman. They all did a pretty good job for the most part and I bought them all as bearded kick ass soldiers who like to work out.
The head of the CIA compound was played by David Costabile. His character does not get along with the security team and acts as their authority figure. He mostly comes off as a sniveling weasel nerd of a character who makes a lot of bad decisions. With this being based on a true story one of the situations that has been most argued by both sides of the political aisle is whether this person told the security team to stand down and not help the U.S. ambassador who was under attack. This movie was based off the book made by two of the security team guys so it is pretty much told from their perspective. I don’t know who is to be believed, but I do appreciate that they got a good veteran actor in Costabile to play the character.
My only small complaint with this movie is that I don’t think it quite fleshes out the characters of the security team all that well. The filmmakers certainly try to in some ways showing them getting along and bonding before all the fighting starts, but Jack Silva is the only one we really learn about for the most part. I really enjoyed the back and forth dialogue between the team and I think that aspect of the film made them very likable characters.
The film is pretty long at 144 minutes, but I think it uses every bit of that time to tell how the incident really went down. The first part of the movie is basically just leading up to the fighting and it is about a good hour until the fighting actually starts. I really appreciate the time the filmmakers gave to setting up the characters and situations that lead into the fighting. Once the combat starts it is pretty much non-stop for a big chunk of the movie. There are lulls here and there in the combat, but for the most part the filmmakers are relentless in showing just about every bit of detail of what happen. The tension throughout the movie feels very real. One of the best things used to show tension is when they show the security team not quite knowing who to trust since the radical militia group attacking them aren’t wearing uniforms.
13 Hours basically has all of Michael Bay’s trademark style film making including his specialties of explosions and quick cuts. In the Tranformers movies you really can’t tell what is happening in most action scenes, but here Bay is actually able to shoot the action scenes in a very competent way that works. Sometimes you can’t tell one big bearded security team member from the other, but overall I don’t mind that too much because I think it actually helps portray how chaotic the battle must have been. I don’t mind Michael Bay’s style of making films, but sometimes I think he needs to practice a lot more restraint and I think he is able to do that in this film.
I was very surprised at how much I liked this movie considering it was directed by Michael Bay. I think it effectively hits on an emotional level which is something I never really expected from Michael Bay as a director. Overall I think he does a pretty good job at avoiding politics although there is no way that this movie was going to be able to completely avoid them considering it is being told from just the perspective of the security team. I think if you separate the politics and just judge the movie on it’s own then I think you can see that 13 Hours is easily Michael Bay’s best movie since The Rock.
Dave’s Rating- ★★★★½(4½) out of ★★★★★(5)
