Michael Bay returns to theatres with a film based on the 2012 Terrorist attack on a CIA compound in Benghazi, Libya. Has Bay learnt his lesson are are we in for the same old Bay-isms? Put it this way, there's not a giant Robot in sight. I'm not going to lie to you, I was unaware of the 2012 attack on a U.S CIA base in Benghazi after the death of Gaddafi in 2011. I'm not really one for politics in my own country let alone a country thousands of miles away, I was aware of who he was and what he was but was never really interested in his political views and of how he ran his country.
13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI (2016)
Much like the the 1993 battle of Mogadishu, depicted
in the film Black Hawk Down, I never knew about these events because
I was never interested in world current affairs. So when the trailer
for 13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI was released earlier
this year, I thought it looked pretty cool, a good war movie. Then at
the end of the trailer it said “BASED ON REAL EVENTS” even more
intrigued now. Then finally came the name of the director....”A
FILM BY MICHAEL BAY”!, God dammit, spoilt the enjoyment. Now I was
far to quick to dismiss this as another Michael Bay movie, I mean
after 4 Transformers movies and that awful bodybuilder “comedy”
Pain & Gain, I wasn't really willing to give the man a second
chance.
Now
I love Bad Boys 1&2, The Rock and to an extent, I really enjoyed
The Island but those Transformers movies really lowered the bar for
me in regards to Bay as a director, he's a very visual film maker,
make no mistake about that and he can shoot an action sequence better
than most modern Hollywood directors but the man struggles with
actors, he doesn't seem to be able to get good performances from his
stars and when he knows the film isn't working, he blows stuff up to
take away the fact that the audience isn't fully invested in the
story...Explosions = Distraction.
But
13 Hours is a different beast compared to the previous Bay films, or
the Bay films of the last 15 years. Yes it has it's fair share of
explosions and gun battles and does have his signature constantly
moving camera but he at least tries to work with the actors and does
manage to pull some pretty good performance out of the relatively
B-list cast.
The
film's plot is basically a siege plot, at one point a character even
refers to the situation as “this Libyan Alamo bullshit”, or
something to that degree, and he's not far off, it does draw
parallels with the historic battle of the Alamo where Mexican troops
launched an assault on the Alamo Mission in Texas which was being
defended by a small force of Texans. That siege last 13 days, the
battle of Benghazi lasted 13 hrs. A secret CIA compound in Benghazi,
Libya is staffed by Analysts and other field agents, the only
military personnel were a group of Private military contractors, used
mainly as body guards and escorts. When the assault started, those
six men found themselves up against 125 to 150 men armed with RPG's
and AK-47's along with Mortar rounds. For 13 hrs straight they
battled the on coming hordes, losing two of their own in the process
before being rescued as dawn breaks.
It's
a fascinating insight into a moment in history that's never really
been brought to light to the masses, all dressed up in Michael Bay's
signature gung ho, boom boom style.
Bay
as a director, has shown time upon time that he is a fantastic action
director but that's pretty much all he is, he's an action director,
his handling of characters and actors is not what you'd call great,
it's ok but he seems more interested in blowing shit up than giving
the viewers characters that they can relate to, to root for. With 13
Hours he some how manages to get a grasp on that, getting good
performances from the cast, especially Jon Krasinski and James Badge
Dale, who people may remember was outstanding in HBO's The Pacific.
Krasinski shows he can be much more than the skinny guy from The
Office, he can be a total badass. Most of the cast are spot on, the
banter between the GRS security guys is good and you kinda get a
feeling of who that person is without delving deep into that person's
personal history. So credit to Bay for actually taking tme out to
understand and work with his actors this time.
The
only problem I had with the script was that it never really
introduced us to the characters to be able to make a connection with,
so the film lacked that emotional punch a film like this should have.
I use Black Hawk Down as a reference as the two films are both quite
similar, however BHD had way more characters and was still able to
pack that emotional punch you'd expect from a war film because the
characters were actual characters, each had a certain personal trait
you could connect with, 13 Hrs unfortunately doesn't, that's not to
say that the men the film is based on have zero personality, it just
that the writer seemed to forget to put any personality into the
script, so when the film is finished you're either not that bothered
if they survived or if they died because you couldn't connect to
them. Never the less, the cast were great brining their performances
to screen even if their characters came across as stock bearded
bad-asses.
Now
we get to look at the action, some of the best military-style
choreographed action since 2011's Act Of Valour, an awesome action
film with a terrible cliched script. This being a Michael Bay film
you expect a certain level of action, you obviously expect the tracer
fire, the 'splosions and for once, no crumbling sky scrapers. To be
fair to Bay, he shied away from over using shaky cam which was one of
the biggest issues with another middle eastern set war film, The
Green Zone, instead opting for more dolly shots, cranes and steady
came shots, there are the occasional shaky action shots but those are
mainly in very close up chaotic scenes. For a film that's nearly 2 ½
hours long, it's pretty action packed from the get go.
So
we get to the CONS of 13hrs. Again, being a Michael Bay film you
expect it to be flawed, I've already mentioned the lack of character
development within the script, can't really fault the action but the
cons are more aimed at the look of the film. 13 Hours, like most bay
films, suffer from an over saturated colour pallet, you take a film
which is set in a town surrounded by desert, you'd expect to see a
more sandy, yellowish film but With Bay, all the colours are overly
turned up to the point where everything looks either Blue or Green.
It can be a bit of problem for people with bad eyesight, I had a
slight issue at points but nothing too major and colour blind people
are gonna have trouble. But the film is easily watchable once you get
used to it.
There's
not a huge amount wrong with the film to which I can really complain
about, it's Bay at his finest as a director, maybe not to the level
he was in the 90s with The Rock, which I still regard as his best
film as a director, but it's Bay showing that he can be a genuine
film maker when not relying on CGI to engage the audience.
It's
a solid 3 Star film, if there had been more character development,
this would have pushed it up to a 4.
Rating : 3.0
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