13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi avoids a political slant and points fingers at a zealous bureaucrat as the person at fault for delays in sending reinforcements into the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. The deaths of the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens, American soldier Glen Doherty (Toby Stephens) and Tyrone “Rone” Woods (James Badge Dale) were avoidable, but due to the delays, the main characters of the film don’t arrive to defend the U.S. Consulate in time to prevent their deaths. Had the CIA station chief, called in both the book and the film as simply “Bob” (David Costabile), been more decisive, the six “soldiers of Benghazi” could have arrived and provided aid sooner. They eventually stand up against his busybody need for control and reckless concern for his job rather than the lives of others, and the rest of the film shows their overnight battle with the local rebels.
13 Hours follows the only six American soldiers stationed in Benghazi as security for U.S. CIA ground affairs: Jack Silva (John Krasinski), Rone, Kris “Tanto” Paronto (Pablo Schriber), Dave “Boon” Benton (David Denman), John “Tig” Tiegen (Dominic Fumusa), and Mark “Oz” Geist (Max Martini). They’re neighbors to the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, a staggeringly poorly protected post, which is home to U.S. Ambassador Stevens. On the night of September 11, 2012, a vicious attack by Islamic militants begins in an effort to assassinate the Ambassador. The six soldiers, the only support available to the Consulate, are held back from going to give aid until they ultimately decide to disobey the direct order of the station chief. Their own compound is attacked later, and they return following the destruction of the Consulate to fight off attackers all night. Along the way, they suffer the loss of one of their own as well as a comrade who was sent as backup, soldier Glen Doherty.
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Michael Bay tried his hand at a serious subject here, putting his action movie skills to work on a story which handled a real event and real lives. The result was a film with a lot of explosions, fire, and masses of faceless bad guys. It’s clear that Bay wanted to pay tribute to the real men, but their character parallels were poorly developed and therefore hard to feel any sort of connection to. 13 Hours is still an exciting ride, but likely in order not to piss off half the audience, it missed an opportunity to shed the light of understanding onto the attack and the possible motivations behind it. In Bay’s defense, he may have more likely been trying to pull off a film like American Sniper, a film that aimed to tell the soldiers’ story, not that of the war. If that’s the case, though, the characters are still in dire need of more thorough development than is provided. Sad music behind montage of calls home and shots of lockers decorated by family pictures isn’t enough to make relatable characters, and when the film ended I still couldn’t pick them out by name.
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Despite its flaws, 13 Hours is a very exciting film if you can accept that you won’t get to really understand the characters or the conflict. It would have been better had Bay focused less on the action and more on the character development, or the conflict itself, depending on what sort of story he set out to tell. The characters have personalities, most notably Tanto, but they are one-dimensional and are nothing more than typical, underdone soldier characters. The explosions and shooting fights were exciting and effectively conveyed the chaos of the situation, which kept the film at least visually interesting and exciting. The cinematography also helped to make the fighting very realistic. The shaky, handheld shots added to the tense excitement, and the lighting all throughout, especially during the scenes with fire and many gunshots, made for visually interesting frames and overhead shots. Another part of the film that stood out was the suspense surrounding the trusting of the “friendlies” who were involved in the conflict. The suspicion that the characters had translated very well onto the screen, and made even the scenes without the exchange of gunfire suspenseful. Some good things, some things that could’ve been done better, an entertaining movie all around. 6/10.
PS: quick note about the cast. It’s likely that some people just went to see this because John Krasinski is in it, but his performance isn’t spectacular. All of the cast did well, but I wasn’t blown away by any of the performances. For Office fans, I’ll say that the character is very different from Jim, so if you’re hoping for side-eyes at the camera and a snappy sense of humor, you’re out of luck. Krasinski delivers a few one-liners in this film, but they aren’t really funny, and it’s painfully obvious that Bay was trying to nod at The Office.