Review: '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi'

When the first trailers for Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi arrived, there were inevitable questions about how political the film would be — it’s about the 2012 attacks on CIA and diplomatic outposts in Libya, told from the perspective of the military contractors who defended them. The New York Times, New York Post, and National Review, among others, all ran articles wondering how the film would impact Hillary Clinton — who was secretary of state during the attacks — and her presidential bid.

In marketing the film, Bay and the real-life men he portrays have stated that 13 Hours is not a political film. The goal, they say, is simply to show what happened, as it happened, and to recognize the courage and sacrifice of the people on the ground that day.

But it takes a more nuanced filmmaker than Bay (the creator of Bad Boys, Armageddon, and the Transformers films) to take an inherently political story like this one and truly make it free from bias. While 13 Hours doesn’t specifically call anyone out, or criticize (or endorse) the decisions of any particular leader or party, Bay and screenwriter Chuck Hogan mistake those qualities as the only ones required to make the film “non-political.”

In many respects, 13 Hours is surprisingly good — the swooping, frenetic camerawork that defines most of Bay’s films is largely missing here. The cast (who, apart from star John Krasinski, are mainly lesser-known, talented character actors) put in good performances.

But, as with any form of narrative art, how you tell a story is just as important as what story you’re telling — both in terms of plot, and how the characters (both main and supporting) interact with that plot. It’s here that the film shows its true colors.

The military contractor heroes of 13 Hours are all decent guys with blue-collar backgrounds and families they love. They are also the smartest, most practical people in the room at any given moment. 13 Hours wastes no time in taking potshots at its CIA operative characters, led by Breaking Bad’s David Costabile as a snobby outpost director who is obstinate beyond the point of disbelief. These characters (who in real life had years of top-level training and experience) can’t do a single thing right to save their lives — literally — because the movie will not let them.

Imagery proves to be another sticking point: There are several shots involving the American flag that are textbook propaganda — from one character’s tattoo, to a destroyed flag floating in a swimming pool post-attack. This is contrasted later with a scene that shows a group of Libyans at morning prayer, with their weapons stacked just behind a pillar. The words “America good, Islam bad” are never directly spoken, but with images like these, they don’t need to be.

13 Hours is made for an audience that isn’t all that different from the heroes it’s portraying. That’s a perfectly fine thing, and a different director — for example, Kathryn Bigelow or Mark Boal, who explored similar themes in The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty — might use it as an opportunity to explore deeper themes, or to challenge viewers’ perceptions.

Instead, Bay chooses to pander, by promoting a worldview that has no room for intellect or compassion, and reinforcing stereotypes. 13 Hours is a film made with no thought to its larger consequences. While it may not have been made to harm anyone, it sure doesn’t help the conversation it’s part of.