Based
on the best-selling account by Mitchell Zuckoff (with the participation of five
of the survivors of the attack), the film begins as former Navy SEAL Jack Silva
(John Krasinski) arrives in Benghazi to work as a private consultant on the
security detail for a CIA outpost alongside old friend Tyrone “Rone” Woods
(James Badge Dale). The job isn’t ideal—Benghazi is one of the most dangerous
places in the world; he is separated from his wife and young daughters; and all
the official CIA people that he is working under, especially outpost chief Bob
(David Costabile), are constantly reminding all the security guys that they are
the ones doing the important work. It brings in more money than staying at home
and working as a real estate agent.
In
early September 2012, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens (Matt Letscher) arrives and
insists on staying at the diplomatic compound during his visit. While
inspecting the premises before the arrival of Ambassador Stevens, Silva, Rone
and their fellow security consultants realize instantly that the protection it
offers is completely inadequate. They're further appalled when they see that a
once-secret meeting has been made into a public affair, alerting everyone in
the dangerously unstable region to the presence of Stevens. Nevertheless, the
CIA guys and the security patrol at the diplomatic compound poo-poo their
warnings and insist that they have everything under control.
On
September 11, the compound, with Stevens inside, is attacked by a heavily-armed
mob that quickly storms the building and even sets it on fire in an attempt to
smoke the ambassador out. From their vantage point at the CIA outpost a mile or
so away, Silva, Rone and four other security men on hand—Kris “Tanto” Paronto
(Pablo Schreiber), Dave “Boon” Benton (David Denman), John “Tig” Tiegan
(Dominic Fumusa) and Mark “Oz” Geist (Max Martini)—can see what is going down
and are prepared to rush over and assist, but the main CIA guy gives them a
direct order to stand down. He continues to repeat that order until the six of
them decide to defy it and head out to the compound without authorization.
Although they fend off waves of attackers and manage to pull a couple of people
out, they are unable to find Stevens in the burning building before returning
to their base. It is then that the CIA base becomes the new focus of attack and
the guys, along with a handful of others, are forced to single-handedly defend
the compound and those inside while calls for air support are ignored and a
potential rescue force is stuck on the tarmac in Tripoli mired in red tape.
In
the hands of the right filmmaker, a film about Benghazi might have yielded
something like Ridley Scott's “Black Hawk Down,” another chronicle of a mission
in an unstable land that went horribly wrong. Scott’s film chronicled the
horrors of what happened, the heroism of those that fought and the combination
of mistakes, misjudgments and plain bad luck that occurred along the way. Alas,
Michael Bay has never been known as a director with any sense of nuance, and
instead recounts the story in the broadest manner imaginable. The screenplay by
Chuck Hogan is about as simplistic and simple-minded as can be—our six heroes
are near-gods who can do no wrong while the government operatives on display
are cartoonishly dumb, obnoxious and blinkered in their thinking. When he wants
viewers to recognize what drives our heroes to put themselves in harm’s way, he
not only has one of them read aloud from Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth”
but repeats that moment as a flashback towards the end—which is also pretty
much the extent of the character development as well. Frankly, the best writing
in the film is featured in a clip from “Tropic Thunder” that is shown and
considering what that movie is about—a group of actors going off to film a war
story that proves to be not quite as accurate as advertised—its inclusion comes
across as either the sickest joke imaginable or a weird bit of meta-commentary
that somehow got slipped into the mix.
As
for Bay, he treats the material in much the same manner for everything
else—like a hyper-violent video game featuring lots of dazzle and precious
little else. Thinking back to “Black Hawk Down,” you will recall how
brilliantly Scott evoked the confusion of what happened while still laying
everything out in a manner and allowing viewers to follow along and find order
in the chaos. “13 Hours” evokes plenty of confusion, but it is less the fog of
war and more the fog of a filmmaker who seems incapable of following the basic
rules of film grammar when needed. One could argue that Bay is trying for a
“you are there” approach that plunges viewers into the mayhem and keeps them as
much in the dark as the character were but he just doesn’t have the skills to
pull it off. Utilizing his familiar arsenal of rapid edits, slow-motion and
showy special effects (including a bit following a mortar as it descends from
the skies to hit its target that appears to be Bay’s homage to a similar shot
in his own “Pearl Harbor”), he does everything he can to get an immediate
reaction (including a bit in which the American flag is machine-gunned in
slow-motion that feels like the longest sustained shot in the film) but
neglects to give viewers anything else to grasp onto that could give them any
understanding of what happened. As bad as the action is, the allegedly character-driven
bits are even worse—a scene in which Silva gets some news from his wife and
kids over a video chat while the family is at a McDonald’s drive-thru is so
badly handled in every possible way that it makes the scene in Bay’s
“Armageddon” with Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler and some animal crackers seem
positively subtle by comparison.
Simply
put, “13 Hours” is a pretty dreadful movie and while watching it, I sat there
trying to figure out what kind of audience might actually go for it. Those of
the liberal persuasion will write it off because it presents elements that have
been highly disputed or flat-out denied (such as the stand-down orders) as
unquestioned fact. Conservatives may be upset that it doesn’t go far enough in
tying Hillary Clinton to the events depicted—unless I missed it, she is never
once mentioned specifically. As an action movie and as a historical document,
it is a bombastic and wholly inauthentic mess that displays precious little
interest in the men whose actions and sacrifices it purports to honor. There is
a good and interesting movie out there to be made about the tragic events at
Benghazi and the political aftermath but “13 Hours” is definitely not it.
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