Director Michael Bay
Genre Action | Drama | Thriller
Cast John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber, David Costabile
Rating R
Release Date January 15th, 2016
“An American Ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya as a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.”
Director Michael Bay gets hammered with his fair share of criticism, most of which is certainly warranted. The running joke always seems to be "my favorite part was when the transformer came out and blew everything up" and so on. Yes, he likes to make movies with lots of explosions, and yes the Transformer films seem to satisfy that apparent need but I am not so sure Bay can be “labeled” so easily. Nonetheless, as a director he keeps the money coming in. The most recent, Transformers: Age of Extinction was a bust with critics but still earned $1 billion worldwide (mostly thanks to popularity in China) with yet another sequel in the works.
Michael Bay's newest film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, is his first attempt at a film based on the United States military since 2001's Pearl Harbor, which received mixed reviews. It is also Bay's third drama based on real-life events, the first two being Pearl Harbor and Pain & Gain (2013). The film is based on the book by Mitchell Zuckoff entitled 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi. As with most film adaptations based on real-life events, certain aspects of the story were changed and adjusted to fit the wants and needs of Hollywood. And to be quite honest, I am okay with that as long as you keep the heart of the story intact.
My relatively tempered expectations brought on by the fact that Bay films have taught me to focus more on entertainment value may have played a part in my overall opinion of the film, but I really enjoyed 13 Hours: The Secret Solders of Benghazi. As a huge fan of films based on our military, one of my favorites being The Hurt Locker, this film manages to set the tone early and make it very clear that Libya is a very, very dangerous place. Now this is not The Hurt Locker, not even close, but it is well acted, intense, funnier than expected, and includes a surprisingly impressive attention to detail considering Bay's usual tendencies. I was worried about taking actor Jon Krasinski (Jim from The Office) seriously, but his ripped physique and impressive beard seemed to do the trick (do NOT look too much into that comment, just an observation).
If you are a fan of action films and can also appreciate the ability to learn a little something along the way, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi will satisfy that craving. Although this film will not get any real recognition in terms of awards, I respect Bay's willingness to release a politically sensitive film during an election year. With that being said, I don’t follow politics and would rather watch a movie over a debate any day (although Trump is hilarious) so who really cares. Ignore the attention seeking clowns on the internet questioning Bay’s intentions in relation to politics and check this one out. I felt pretty good when I left the theater and it’s just a movie after all.
