Hollywood biographical war pictures are used as devices to mark significant events of terrorism, a form through which we comprehend accounts of reality and glimpse on the American psyche. Over the last few years we have Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Lone Survivor (2013), and American Sniper (2014), to name only a few. For 2016, Michael Bay leads the strain of contemporary soldiers flick in 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
No stranger to true story war films, Bay has directed Pearl Harbor way back 2001. The film opened to mixed reviews on its failed attempt to be the Titanic equivalent of war films. Bay has the history of directing overly-ambitious films run by his love for visual cacophony—extreme dose of chaos, explosions, CGI, lens flare, and other cheap tricks. He is a little kid left in the nursery room, one that gets his jollies all over the place and blows everything into Michael-bay pixels—a phenomenon we fondly call the “Bay-ism”. I have to swallow my subconscious hate for the man, however, after seeing 13 Hours—an actually good action film. Sure, the heavy use of exploding stuff is still present but in the film’s case explosion is recurrent and central to the story.
Photos via Paramount Pictures.
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The tension herein is built well in spite of the compressed timeline and the episodic nature of the film.
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13 hours takes us to the actual events that transpired on September 11, 2012 when a series of attacks stormed the U.S. embassy and CIA compound in Benghazi, Libya. The action focuses on the six-man team of private military contractors: headed by the alpha-leader Rone (played by James Badge Dale), with former jarheads Jack, Oz, Tig, Tanto, and Boon (played by John Krazinski, Max Martini, Dominic Fumusca, Pablo Schreiber, and David Denman, respectively). Being the sole security of the CIA outpost and the thirty CIA desk agents/officers housed inside, together they fight-off and hold Libyan terrorists long enough for a back-up team to arrive—a plan of which they are uncertain. This occurs for a 13 bloody long hours. Easier said than done.
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A technical flaw of the film is the frequent use of shaky cam on the film’s first half. The use of such technique can be effective in creating distress and paranoia common in horror films but it is seldom preferred in an action film where viewers often require visual access to what is happening on screen. For short: unless done right, shaky camerawork is nauseating. There is plenty of firepower unleashed in this depiction of what happened in ‘12, but that, perhaps, stems from Bay’s D.N.A. All the incessant barrage bombing and gnarly stuff happening (in the name of patriotism) gradually wane after a little while. By the film’s second half, steadier camerawork is employed and there we get to enjoy the action and fight scenes. The film provides a variety of action sequences as waves of Libyan terrorists (or zombies as they seem to spawn from everywhere throughout the film) try to obliterate the compound. The tension herein is built well in spite of the compressed timeline and the episodic nature of the film.
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John Krazinski in 13 Hours. Photo via Paramount Pictures.
There is a welcome and active attempt to give more humanity to the soldiers in the way that both The Hurt Locker and American Sniper have done. Video conversations between the soldiers and their loved ones are utilized in a key moment in the film where it is made clear that at least one of them are not going to make it. The film have surprising bits of comedy in it that appear like remnants from a Transformers script. The film in the whole is a passable experience, sorely lacking however in character distinctiveness. You get a hard time tracking who’s who with all the full-beards and the greasy action going on. The closest to a main protagonist you get in the film is Jack De Silva (Krazinski). Krazinski might play a goofy and mild-mannered Jim Halpert in “The Office” but to take on a serious role in an action film, he really does own it and re-invented himself in that persona.
While it smartly shies away from aiming a political propaganda, 13 Hours nudges you to question the inadmissible lack of response from the White House (ehem, Hillary Clinton). It is one of those films some people in power do not want you to see. Setting aside the political anxieties, the true intention of the film is to pay tribute to these unsung heroes. And despite its flaws, Michael Bay captures what these brave men have gone through. In no time, the recent Parisian attacks will make it to the big screen and Bay directing it suddenly does not seem an absurd idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqM9eF3vbWM
