13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is a watchable and workmanlike war movie from director Michael Bay.  Something should immediately jump out at you about that sentence that just sounds wrong.  How can a movie based around the tragic events in 2012 of an attack on an American diplomatic compound in Libya that left an American ambassador and three other Americans dead simply be watchable and workmanlike?  The answer, I believe, lies in Michael Bay.

The problem is that Bay has tried to make a blockbuster movie out of the story.  This is probably not a surprise, given these are the kind of films he specializes in.  You would think he would maybe want to get a little more serious with this movie, and he does from time to time.  He shows a bit more subtlety than he normally does, and he allows a few quiet moments to sneak in between the extended periods of gunfire.  He also applies a lot of the same techniques he uses in his more frivolous work, such as rapid fire editing, shaky camera work (even during simple scenes where people are talking), and unnecessary slo-mo.  He fortunately doesn't use these techniques to the point of self parody like he did in his last Transformers movie, so he at least is showing restraint.  But at the same time, he feels like the wrong director to be telling this story.  He has given us a straightforward and simple movie, when the material needs to be hard-hitting and raw.

How simple is this movie overall?  I think that can be summed up in a line near the end of the film, when one of the main characters is about to board a plane back for the U.S.  But, before he leaves, he turns his head back over the shoulder, looks at the land around him, and states flat-out "this country's gotta figure this shit out...".  So, yes, the movie's final message is that Libya is one screwed up place.  I'm sure there are many who would agree, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that.  The movie attempts to lionize its six main protagonists - CIA contractors who defied orders and fought off the Libyan insurgents after they staged a massive attack on a compound where the American ambassador was staying.  But at the same time, the movie tells us little about these men, other than they were brave, heroic, and had wives, adorable little girls and puppies waiting for them back home.  What these men did was very noble indeed, and their efforts probably deserve a movie that actually lets us know who they really were, rather than just showing them in firefights that take up the last 90 minutes or so of the film.

Again, given the simple nature of the screenplay, the most we get is that the six CIA contractors were the only ones who knew what they were doing.  The government officials they worked for were pompous buffoons with fancy degrees that didn't have any right even being in the same room as these six brave individuals who fought back.  It's a total black and white approach to the story.  These men were right, everyone else who walks onto the screen is wrong in one way or another, whether it be initially denying them the right to fight back, or speaking up in their presence.  The movie doesn't do enough with its own premise, or exploring how Libya is essentially a powder keg waiting to explode in violence.  It touches on these ideas, but doesn't bother to dig deep.  Instead, the movie spends the first half of the movie alternating between the men having to deal with government blowhards who don't like them, and scenes of the men having Skype conversations with their wives and kids back home.  When the attack begins and the violence breaks out into chaos, Bay never seems to have a handle on the action.  Oh, it's not that it's not intense, it's just that in his desire to capture the chaotic nature of war itself, Bay relies a little too heavily on rapid fire editing to the point that we can't tell what is being done to whom.

The six brave Americans who hold off the Libyan attackers are all likable, and led by Jack Silva (John Krasinski) and veteran Tyrone "Rone" Woods (James Badge Dale).  All six of the men are likable, but the script gives them little in terms of personality, so there's never the level of intensity and investment that we should be feeling when these men are fighting for their lives.  The men are given the most basic character traits before they are sent out to battle, so when tragedy does rear its ugly head on the field of battle, it doesn't have the impact that it needs.  We're impressed by the special effects and the ingenuity behind the explosions, but there's just no human quality to the battle.  That's what every great war and survival movie needs, and this movie simply comes up short.

Because of this, 13 Hours ultimately feels like somewhat of a rush job.  It's been made with some skill, but the filmmakers didn't take enough time to get behind the story and the people involved.  It's simply a cheap thrill film built around a terrible human tragedy.  That's ultimately why I feel Bay was the wrong man for this job.  He got the pyrotechnics right, but he completely missed the heart behind the story.

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