13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Sure, Bay indulges some signature cinematic fetishes. But he shows restraint with the slowed-down, sexed-up shots. War is gritty here, not glamorous. Result: characters, stakes and emotions feel authentic — all the more so thanks to terrific actors including James Badge Dale and Pablo Schreiber as actual ex-military men and family men who battled terrorists.

13 Hours, by its very subject matter, can't help but tap into the confluent veins of politics and patriotism.

The final word on this incident will require a more thoughtful filmmaker. But hopefully, that artist will possess at least half of Bay’s punishing, peerless craft.

Bay's overwrought tendencies simultaneously lead to the film's most compelling sequences of tense, bloody battle even as they forestall the more nuanced storytelling that would be crucial to truly unpacking the attacks. Bay may see the film as a cry of truth; muffled by his own predilections it's only a whisper.

Bay has attempted to carefully characterize and humanize each member of the security force, and Krasinski, Dale and Schreiber are largely successful at creating personable fighters.

A weird mix of pseudo-jingoism and Bay’s usual bombastic firepower, 13 Hours ends up being a straight-up war film without an actual war in it.

Shots are short, oddly made, and shoddily smashed together. There’s no spatial continuity, let alone consistency in time of day, or even a care for any kind of visual coherence. 13 Hours is just chaos. It’s unwatchable, unlikable, and unworthy of respect.

No sooner had the movie started that we watched a tension scene. Not only is a great movie, but it´s the best war movie i had seen in my life. Not only did the cast play great in the movie, but they also made a great criticism to usa politic.

Really not a good movie. Decent enough to pass the time. It's a classic Michael Bay movie that is able to entertain enough to make it worthwhile to finish the movie. What the movie is bad at, though, is a laundry list. The dialogue was terrible, another movie falls victim to the director trying to make every character sound cool and just being a superficial **** after it. There are far too few, if any, likeable characters, largely because we get almost no proximity to any of them. Every scene that was used to develop the characters and their relations was split between all of the soldiers, making it cookie cutter and pointless. Also it was like everyone exclusively spoke in one liners. Finally, as someone who recently watched Black Hawk Down and still remembers Saving Private Ryan and a whole host of other war movies, this one fails at making the battles comprehensible, with a sense of seriousness, and timely. The defense and exfil of the ambassadors compound was nauseatingly confusing. None of the characters actions made sense due to the poor explanation of the layout of the compound and of the characters. Somehow, the 8 people in the compound were split up almost to the number, and no one protected themselves. Movie... just explain it! Have someone giving clear orders or use the drone for exposition by being monitored by AFRICOM or something. Establish the scene so there is meaning and I'm not just watching people run through bushes for half an hour and I still have no idea where they are going and for what purpose. Anyways, I could go on, there was a lot wrong with the movie. In the end though, it's a military movie based on a true story which always bring a positive element, and it showed what the American government often tries to do in other countries (help support, develop, and maintain stability) along with the difficulties that entails, which is something I appreciate.

+Great UHD / HDR visuals +Excellent cast +Strong surround effects +Fascinating premise (based on real life events) -Confusing action set pieces -Typical 'Bay' over saturated zoomed in shaky panning -OTT direction took me out of the story at times I was totally drawn in up until the first major action sequence afterwhich the illusion kind of broke for me revealing the usual OTT bay style (gunfights that resemble sparklers!?) and so I found this really broke the tone and took away from the dramatic potential of the movie. I WANTED to like this more than I could. While certainly entertaining as an 'action film', the near constant 2-3 second cuts and tonal shifts are too jarring and serve as an unwelcome reminder that bay simply hasnt got the cinematic chops required to allow an audience to connect to the (much needed!) dramatic scenes as well.

US propaganda movie with cowboys, unsympathic characters and boring dialogues. The edit is fast only to create suspense, but the scenes are meaningless.

It was well shot i will give it that, but it´s just american propaganda at it´s highest form.