13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, 2016.
Directed by Michael Bay.
Starring John Krasinski, Max Martini, James Badge Dale, Freddie Stroma and Toby Stephens.
SYNOPSIS:
Over the course of one hot, desperate night, a team of covert American military defence contractors must protect a secret CIA compound in the Libyan city of Benghazi from a wave of jihadists…
Michael Bay is a truly pernicious, right-wing filmmaker. He’s Clint Eastwood without either the old school charm or talent. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt, even though you likely suspected it for quite some time. It’s one thing for Bay to make loud, noisy trash such as the Transformers franchise, or even morally repulsive character drama like Pain & Gain, but when he makes a picture like 13 Hours and fumbles his way into modern geopolitics, you just want to take away his license to foist cinema upon the general public, because in a world where people don’t need any more of an excuse to hate and vilify the Middle East, it’s actually quite a dangerous piece of jingoistic American rhetoric; the kind of film you could imagine Donald Trump making the population watch at his inauguration as he straps them down like droogs, forcing open their eyes to watch the horror show. It’s not that as a piece of filmmaking it’s without any sense of structural ability or merit, it’s simply ugly to anyone who abhors violent solutions to complicated political situations.
The response no doubt would be from Bayhem apologists that it’s a ‘true story’, and that’s certainly the case on a technical level, but despite what Bay may say it’s almost impossible for real life to have been quite this gung-ho and pro-American as his film depicts. Screenwriter Chuck Hogan (who is better than this enterprise) adapted Mitchell Zuckoff’s book recounting the Benghazi events without an eye for the political, simply recounting the Alamo-esque under siege battle the team of covert defence contractors in the city faced over that time period, but while Bay simply may be trying to match the book’s action-fuelled stance, even in his usual hollow noise he can’t help but make an undercurrent of a political statement.
The script constantly refers to the Libyan militia as ‘the bad guys’ with almost no attempt to flesh them out as anything other than ‘those gun-totin’ Ayrabs’ you might hear bullish, ill-educated Americans loudly decry. The relatively decent cast of players including James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Toby Stephens (though God knows why he was cast in this role) & Max Martini don’t disgrace themselves, trying to find character points and beats in the real-life soldiers they play, but they’re so full of arrogant bravado anyone looking for a deeper exploration of the conflict in Libya will almost instantly be frustrated at how one note the portrayal of these men are. Krasinski’s John Silva, in a rare moment of clarity, does admittedly make the point they’re fighting a war they don’t understand in a country they don’t care about, but that’s not enough – make *me* care.
Bay doesn’t care about making me care though, or you, or anyone else. 13 Hours isn’t quite as lusciously pornographic in the director’s love of hardware and machinery as usual, probably because he’s recounting a true story, but his camera pores over the seriously hardcore weaponry the GRS contractors use in their defence of the compound on a frequent basis. Muslim ‘jihadists’ are picked off with Call of Duty-style, gleeful and bloody abandon by the US firepower, Bay not hesitating to show limbs being torn off or waves of Libyans being gunned down by the superior American defence. He kindly gives one small montage over to Muslim wives and mothers mourning their dead. When his own American cast are injured or killed, he devotes the final third of the screen time to lingering, mournful scenes or reminders these guys were ‘true American heroes’ fighting in a lost land.
That’s the real point Bay and Hogan’s script are making – what are these men fighting for? Who are they fighting for? Silva’s family are depicted as struggling without him back home in the scant characterisation we do get, and Bay’s message is clear – we should get out, not because these people deserve better, but because America shouldn’t care. It’s no wonder Bay made a film about Pearl Harbor because in some strange way there are recurring motifs across time between the two. In the end, for all the attempts at making this a gripping and heartfelt depiction of a dark event in the history of America’s questionable foreign policy, Bay’s shaky, messy, loud, brainless and oily direction just amounts to the usual result – noisy, violent, grainy action with utterly no depth or substance.
That’ll suit some people fine too. If that’s what you want from a Michael Bay film, that’s what you’ll get, and chances are if you’re a fan of Bay that’s what you’ll enjoy. 13 Hours, admittedly, isn’t at all the worst film the director has ever given us – it’s not as blundering or hopelessly thick as other films he’s done, but it’s not nearly as nihilistic as he hopes it may come across, in the vein of chief inspiration Black Hawk Down. Bay may want to convince everyone he’s making a pure action movie, derived from the limited viewpoint of the American soldiers under siege, but make no mistake – this is right wing, American propaganda appealing to a section of the electorate who believe Muslims are the bad guys, and Americans are the good guys, and no shades of grey exist between the two.
In these strange times of confusion, where fear and hysteria and propaganda gain ever more traction, 13 Hours deserves recognising for being proficient, on a technical and visceral level, but utterly abhorrent on a political level, at least from my liberalist perspective. You almost wish Bay had made something as brainless as his usual output.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Tony Black is a freelance film/TV writer & podcaster & would love you to follow him on Twitter.
Scott Whitmore says
Tony ?!?! What makes your opinion right ?? You complain about Bay but all you did in your review was the same as his movie. Only you were on the other side!!! Lol. Sorry. Obama isn’t up for office this year. I know you are Butt hurt.
Michael McCollum says
Solid review of this revisionist garbage. Its built to pander to the Scott Whitmores of the world who know jack about Benghazi, even less about Derna, and even less about how one secures a compound in a destabilized region. Clearly Bay would rather pander to a select group of useful idiots than tell a story accurately. The last thing Americans need is more pedantic nonsense from this type of director. Unlike Scott Whitmore, I work in the field related to these attacks and his sort of rhetoric will do nothing to prevent future attacks. Instead he is a convenient idiot that groups like ISIS love!
Patrick Day says
Way to drink the kool aid there Michael. Who’s the useful idiot? you’ve learned well to fear your government and everything they tell you. As someone who worked for said government for two decades, I can tell you they lie…all the time. Bey isn’t pandering, do you believe the men who were there are lying? are they rightwing hacks and simply trying to embarrass your progressive heroes? And as someone who DID work in a field directly related to this type of stuff I can tell you, its painfully
obvious you didn’t. One last question, you think talking to them is going to stop
these types of attacks? Naive dilettante
Michael McCollum says
oh how amused with yourself you are.
“your government”…sorry you don’t know who “my government” is, shortstop.
I’ll let you spin in your spew, kiddo.
Michael McCollum says
and if you believe the drivel in this movie, then it is you who is drinking your conservative fanboy blogger kool-aid chumpy. The rest of us live in the real world of facts instead of rumors and circle jerk commentary.
And on that night one of the two of us was working for a security contracting company operating in Libya and the other goes by the name Patrick Day who loves to be the super-conservative troll who rambles too much.
Michael McCollum says
oh, chumpy,
Since you asked who was lying…”the men who were there are lying”…wasn’t that your question?
SOC Africa Commander Lt Col Gibson: Madam Chairman, I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place. “Stand down” implies that we cease all operations, cease all activities. We continued to support the team that was in Tripoli. We continued to maintain visibility of the events as they unfolded”
Are you going to accuse him of lying?
Or perhaps you’re accusing AFRICOM Gen Carter Ham of lying?
Maybe that’s who you mean, right?
or maybe you mean Vice Admiral Kurt Tidd? Maybe he was lying?
Colonel George Bristol must be who you are referring to as a liar, right?
See, all these folks have been clear that no stand down order was ever given.
Instead, as clearly explained they placed priority on Tripoli (where your government has an embassy) instead of a compound that was neither an embassy nor even a consulate. In case you forgot, the Cairo embassy was overrun earlier in the day.
That your question implies you mean the guys with guns, I don’t really care what their take is because they weren’t giving orders, they were taking them. And having watched them complain that they weren’t allowed to do enough isn’t surprising considering their roles. Maybe this is stunning to a low-end grunt like you who never held a rank worthy of command, but it isn’t surprising to me.
Maybe you should stop drinking your kool-aid buddy, its tainting your brain. (or less of your conservative fanboy blog time would be good for you)
But to answer the larger question, the attackers told locals why they attacked, and you can’t remove those facts no matter how hard you scrub. They didn’t attack because they were bored. Just like happened in Feb 17, 2006, the compound was attacked in retaliation for insulting the prophet. The Ansar al-Sharia attackers made this clear already, but you don’t pay attention to that fact because you are too busy sucking down the kool-aid.
Good night chumpy, you’ve been amusing for your little moment. Buy all of Bey’s movies if you want. They’re geared for immature, juvenile, buttsniffing gits like you!
Patrick Day says
I really do pity you….
Michael McCollum says
You aren’t worth enough to pity anyone, skippy. That’s just more of your kool-aid talkin.
Patrick Day says
That all you got Maggot? I’d fuckin kill you, I tried to be civilized, but no, like a typical liberal retard loving tranny fucker you gotta take it to the ground. I’d fucking smoke you till your ass was sucking buttermilk there sugar lips. You got any more there princess? C’mon.. Pussy.
odin2 says
13 Hours is a great movie and it was true to the book which was a factual account of what happened at Benghazi from the perspective of those who were there. Neither the book nor the movie speculated as to who was making the decisions about whether or not to attempt a rescue. What is clear is that those who were on the ground made repeated requests for assistance and no attempt was made to provide any.
CMD says
“Toby Stephens (though God knows why he was cast in this role)” — Hoping you mean that in a “he’s too good for this” manner because I’d agree with that. A waste of amazing talent there. Although I guess Bay cast him because he’s the lead in “Black Sails” which has Bay’s name attached to it but he has very little to do with it (which is probably why it’s so good).
Tony Black says
That’s exactly why about Stephens, he’s better than this guff. It just seems a really strange role for the son of two of Britain’s acting royalty to be cast in as well – surely made more sense to go with an American actor? Mind you, the same could be said for dozens of other very American roles British actors regularly take these days.