The story concerns a group of security guys (notably including John Krasinksi and James Badge Dale) culled from the American military to act as guards for the secret CIA headquarters in Benghazi, Libya. When the American ambassador to Libya (played by Matt Letscher) makes a visit, he is placed in a temporary base that isn’t an official embassy and therefore doesn’t technically require more than a handful of men. But the word gets out and a mob of bad guys overrun the outpost, forcing our heroes, the CIA security guys, to decide whether they can risk revealing America’s presence in the country by helping out. Furthering their dilemma, their by-the-books Chief (played by Dave Costabile) keeps telling them not to get involved because there’s too much red tape in the way of getting high-up clearance. But duty calls and our heroes fight their battle regardless, and there is much wailing and firing of weapons.
When I say the movie takes place in “some form” of reality, I am in no way downgrading the heroism of the true story that occurred. I am only referencing the fact that Bay simply can’t make a movie that doesn’t take place in his black and white macho world of brotherhood and violence. Everything is almost idiotically simple, with all the characters either good or bad because the movie said so, that’s why (The Chief is written to be hated, mostly because he has the nerve to do his job and follow orders. And he doesn’t like guns! BOO! TRAITOR!).
After seeing the film, I tweeted, “13 Hours might have been an OK movie if it didn’t have dialogue or music or acting and was a video game.” My point is that even though this is a movie about a very serious real-life event, and which probably more or less accurately portrays what much of it was like, it does not care about anything but superficial entertainment, the whiz-bang excitement of it all, and certainly doesn’t have time for politics.
That’s something that bothers me, *START OF RANT* the way people are approaching 13 Hours as if it were about anything more than mindless action. I keep hearing that it’s making statements about government that it simply isn’t (Hillary Clinton is not seen, mentioned, or even alluded to). If you go into the movie knowing nothing about what really happened, you will leave still knowing nothing about the behind-the-scenes specifics. If you go in expecting a political diatribe one way or another, you will see it. So if you enjoy the movie, don’t say it’s because it somehow confirmed your personal views. You enjoyed it because it’s a flashy, exhilarating action movie. *END OF RANT*
And if there’s one thing this movie does right, it’s action. Bay has proven time and again that he has an incredible control over his method of blending cinematic trickery and in-your-face violence to make for action sequences that are downright spectacular. I admit there’s nothing here that he hasn’t already done in some of his best work (He steals from his own stuff frequently, with some specific shots from The Rock and Pearl Harbor being almost identically repeated.), but it’s thrilling nonetheless. Which is why I would have been happier if the screenplay had simply jumped into the action and stayed there, or, you know, actually did it’s job and made us care about the characters.
As it stands, the men are interchangeable without even simple personality traits to make them stand out. The only clue we’re given that they’re human beings is an overlong montage scene in which all the guys call their families back home, a sequence that only exists to give the illusion of drama, but again, we don’t know these men enough for it to make any emotional connection. Anyone who cries during that scene is reacting to a Hallmark-esque manipulation (Here’s some sad things! Aren’t they sad?!), but it’s not real.
I didn’t enjoy 13 Hours because all the great action in the world can’t save a movie that’s this much of a narrative and emotional mess. But it’s saved from the trash bin precisely because it has so much entertainment value, which is to say that mileage will vary depending on your tolerance for stupidity.
C
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