13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi

This review may contain spoilers!

While not the greatest war film that I've ever seen, Michael Bay delivers an action packed glimpse into the onslaught between American and Libyan forces in Benghazi. I would give 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi a 6.5/10.

This film creates a great atmosphere of foreboding and terror, you feel in danger alongside the main protagonists of this film as events escalate. Ultimately the greatest part of the plot is the combat engagements and character deaths; the engagements are brutal and very raw moments of action in this film while the deaths are incredibly well done and make you feel a strong emotional response for characters you hadn't even cared much about up until that point in time. The special effects in this movie look great, the explosion effects especially are really visually appealing. The score for this movie is dark and really backs the film well, it becomes the pulse of the film and allows you to know when to be scared and when to be on the edge of your seat. The cinematography is probably the best part of this film, what's presented here is a really aesthetic and at times horrific glimpse into war.

John Krasinski, who played Jack Silva, was a pretty good lead for this film; Krasinski has some great chemistry with Badge Dale in this film and some of his best acting comes at the end where we see the losses his role has experienced harden his character. Pablo Schreiber, who played Kris 'Tanto' Paronto, was a great source of comedic relief in this film; the slippery slope for his character of not being able to tell the attackers from the civilians was really interesting. David Constabile, who played Bob, was a character you loved to hate in this film; I enjoyed seeing his rather incompetent character spiral out of control and slowly lose more and more power to Badge Dale. Toby Stephens, who played Glen 'Bub' Doherty, wasn't in this film much but was easily one of the stand out performances; Stephens had the intimidating gravitas of a leading military man and had the most presence in this film.

However the best performance came from James Badge Dale, who played Tyrone 'Rone' Woods. Badge Dale introduces us to this Libyan world where war rages on the streets and in Benghazi has devolved to a black market arms race. I immediately felt that he was one of the funniest characters in this film as well as one of the most charismatic. He had a lot of presence, creating quite a big impact as the leader of these contract soldiers. His chemistry with Krasinski was great and his rivalry with Constabile even better. His death was one of the most emotional of the film as he was set up to be one of the most likeable roles.

The plot of this film was far too long, there were copious unnecessary scenes and it felt like a lot of stuff shouldn't have made it out of the editing room because it affected the film's pacing. The story itself didn't pay a great deal of attention to it's characters until about halfway through the film which i felt was a bit poorly executed. Ultimately this was a good war film but a plot that had more focus and attention to detail would have been better. The editing for this film was very quick and at times jarring, I also thought the transitions with the blue screen was a bit inconsistent.

David Denman, who played Dave 'Boon' Benton, wasn't particularly memorable in this film; his witticisms didn't really land in the scenes he was in. Dominic Fumusa, who played John 'Tig' Tiegen, lacked screen presence in a big way in this film; he didn't seem to have much of a role in this film. Max Martini, who played Mark 'Oz' Geist, was the most forgettable of the soldiers in this film; Martini's character could have been quite interesting if the plot had paid any attention to it's characters. Alexia Barlier, who played Sona Jillani, is a character that I didn't really understand; she served absolutely to no purpose in this film and didn't really need to be in it. Peyman Moaadi, who played Amahl, was this quirky dorky character that felt like cheap unrealistic comedic relief; he was a bit of a throwaway role in this film. Matt Letscher, who played Ambassador Chris Stevens, had next to no screen presence for someone who was so important to the narrative; he was one of the few characters that you didn't care about when they died. Demetrius Grosse, who played DS Dave Ubben, was a role that was crammed into the story and there was clearly an attempt to give him focus; however Grosse's performance lacked presence and so he became easy to forget about. David Giuntoli, who played DS Scott Wickland, gave a really forced performance in this film; while Giuntoli is great at portraying shock his performance as a soldier wasn't very convincing. Freddie Stroma, who played Brit Vayner, was this really wooden performer who had the same problem as Barlier; there wasn't much reason for his role to even be in 13 Hours. Christopher Dingli, who played Sean Smith, was immediately forgettable in this film; his character didn't need as much screen time as he got. Wrenn Schmidt, who played Becky Silva, was at the forefront of one of the most boring subplots of the film; we didn't care about Krasinski's home life and therefore we didn't care about Schmidt.